What Makes Vitamin B Complex Different From Other Vitamins ~ What is

Reading through modern health literature, it soon becomes clear to you that vitamin B complex is considered as being different from other vitamins. We are interested in finding out what exactly makes vitamin B complex unique.

And as it turns out, the main thing which makes vitamin B complex different from the other vitamins is the fact that it is not, in fact, a single vitamin. Thus unlike vitamin C (which is in fact the substance known as ascorbic acid), or vitamin D (which is in fact the substance known as calciferol), vitamin B complex is not a single substance.
Rather, vitamin B complex is a group of quite distinct substances, which are nonetheless classified as belonging to this ‘complex’ on account of the fact that they share some characteristics, and they are typically available in the same types of food. The specific substances we are talking about here, as being members of the vitamin B complex, include thiamine, niacin, riboflavin and pantothenic acid. Others are cobolamins, biotin, pyridoxine and folic acid.

Another distinguishing feature for all substances in the vitamin B complex (which is also one thing which brings them together) is the fact that they are all water soluble. You come to realize that there vitamins which are oil soluble and there are vitamins which are water soluble. And it comes to pass that the whole range of vitamins in the vitamin B complex are water soluble. Therefore, if during a biochemical test, a substance which is suspected of being a member of vitamin B complex is found to be insoluble in water, it is automatically disqualified from being a possible member of the vitamin B complex.

What is remarkable about the vitamin B complex members is that although they share the same functions in the body (mostly to do with cell metabolism), their deficiencies tend to lead to distinct symptoms. Thus a person who happens to be deficient in vitamin B1 (which is thiamine), will tend to suffer from that condition known as beriberi, which in the worse cases, can advance into full-blown Korsakoff’s syndrome – which is basically severe mental illness of the psychotic type. On the other hand, a person who is deficient in vitamin B2 (which is, in actual fact, riboflavin) will tend to suffer from the condition known as ariboflavinosis. A person who doesn’t get as much vitamin B5 as he needs (vitamin B5 being, in actual fact, the pantothenic acid), would tend to experience an inexplicable case of acne.

Therefore, the various members of the vitamin B complex can be said to play the same (basic) function in the body; that being the cell metabolism function. But they seem to play it in various ways, so that a deficiency in any one of them will tend to manifest differently.

We could also say that vitamin B complex is different from most other vitamins because there is a very wide variety of foods that one can get the vitamins in the complex from (probably on account of the fact that it is made of so many different substances). That is unlike, for instance, vitamin A, D or E, for which there is only a handful of foods from which one can get viable levels of them (the respective vitamins).

By: Vivian Jones

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