Vitamin B6 benefits you in maybe more ways than any other vitamin. Vitamin B6 has been called the "mighty vite" because of all the functions it performs. It is estimated that Vitamin B6 is involved with more than 101 chemical reactions that occur in our bodies.

Vitamin B6 helps us by aiding in the manufacturing of amino acids. Amino acids are what we need to build proteins. And as we all know, proteins are essential for the repair and growth of our tissue.

Vitamin B6 benefits our brains as well. Vitamin B6 helps us to make what's called neurotransmitters. Neurotransmitters are chemicals that connect one nerve cell to the next and enable these two nerve cells to communicate with one another.

Some of these neurotransmitters are serotonin, norepinephrine, dopamine and what's called GABA. These neurotransmitters are essential for regulating our mood and even helping to ward off depression in our later years.

Vitamin B6 benefits us also by helping us to metabolize our foods and converting these foods into energy we need to get us through our day.

Even though the Vitamin B6 benefits we mentioned above are nothing to sneeze at (sorry, that's Vitamin C right?), we feel that Vitamin B6 may play a part in preventing disease - vascular disease and brain disease.

Vitamin B6 Benefits Us in Our Fight Against Vascular Disease

Vascular Disease can take many forms i.e. heart disease and stroke for instance. And although there are many factors leading up to vascular disease, one of our bodies' chemicals has been identified as an independent risk factor. That chemical is what's called homocysteine (I know - "i" before "e" except after "c")

We covered homocysteine quite a bit on our Folic Acid page, so I will refer you there if you really want to learn about homocysteine.

But just briefly, homocysteine is a byproduct of our eating meat. Normally our bodies want to convert homocysteine into methionine which your body needs to make proteins and to perform other chemical processes. However, we need Vitamin B6 benefits to do so. Remember - homocysteine is bad - methionine is good.

Many recent and exciting studies have shown the indisputable relationship between Folic Acid, Vitamin B12 and Vitamin B6 and a significant lowering of our homocysteine levels and along with lower homocysteine levels, a significant lowering of our risk for vascular disease.

A study in the Journal of the American Medical Association titled "Homocysteine vs. Vitamin B6" tells us that "in fact, the study showed that people with the highest blood levels of vitamin B6 had about one third the risk of developing heart disease compared with people with the lowest levels of Vitamin B6."