Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Vitamin B5

Vitamin B5 is a water soluble vitamin that is also known as pantothenic acid or pantothenate. It creates lipids (fats), steroid hormones (including cortisone), hemoglobin (blood), and neurotransmitters. It helps with health skin, nerves and muscles. There is twice as much vitamin B5 in human muscle then other meats. It reduces allergies and supports the adrenal glands. It is used in the metabolism of lipids, proteins and carbohydrates.
A deficiency has the symptoms of apathy, fatigue, nausea, headaches, depression, tingling in hands, cardiac instability and personality changes. Other symptoms are fertility problems, acne, decreased serum potassium, lowered blood cholesterol, and insulin sensitivity. Other symptoms possibly are frequent infections, abdominal pains, sleep disturbances, neurological disturbances such as paresthesia like "burning feet", numbness, muscle weakness, and cramps.
Although there is no toxicity, an excess can lead to a sensitivity in the teeth, diarrhea, digestive abnormalities and water retention. It is lost in cooking, particularly roasting and milling (often found in the hulls of grains), exposure to acids (like vinegar) and alkaline (such as bi carb). It is destroyed by the canning process (high heating).
It is found in a lot of foods (in Greek it's scientific name means "from everywhere"). Eggs, fresh vegetables, broccoli, alfalfa, avocados, legumes, mushrooms, nuts, molasses, whole rye flour, whole wheat, whole grain cereal, royal jelly, torula yeast, brewer's yeast, salt water fish, cold water fish ovaries, pork, kidneys, and beef all contain it in good amounts.

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