When was the last time you felt amazing? Imagine starting each day with high energy, robust health, and an optimistic outlook. Yet many of us muddle through each day in a fog of fatigue, vibrating at a low frequency that keeps us from living our best lives. Changing your life is never easy, but changing the way you feel can be as simple as optimizing your levels of Vitamin B12.
Today’s stressful lifestyles can quickly deplete essential micronutrients like vitamins, minerals and amino acids. Ongoing vitamin deficiency can ultimately affect your mood and health, and accelerate the aging process. Vitamin B12, aka cobalamin, is an essential nutrient that plays an important role in overall health. Yet many Americans are B12 deficient, causing you to perform far below your potential.
What is B12 and Why is It Important?
Vitamin B12 is an important nutrient that profoundly impacts your health.
Your body needs B12 to:
- Maintain healthy blood cells
- Protect nerves throughout your body
- Manufacture DNA
- Prevent fatigue and weakness
- Stabilize mood
- Promote healthy skin, hair and nails
- Maintain reproductive health
You absorb B12 from certain foods via a 2-step process:
When was the last time you felt amazing? Imagine starting each day with high energy, robust health, and an optimistic outlook. Yet many of us muddle through each day in a fog of fatigue, vibrating at a low frequency that keeps us from living our best lives. Changing your life is never easy, but changing the way you feel can be as simple as optimizing your levels of Vitamin B12.
Today’s stressful lifestyles can quickly deplete essential micronutrients like vitamins, minerals and amino acids. Ongoing vitamin deficiency can ultimately affect your mood and health, and accelerate the aging process. Vitamin B12, aka cobalamin, is an essential nutrient that plays an important role in overall health. Yet many Americans are B12 deficient, causing you to perform far below your potential.
1.Your digestive tract uses hydrochloric acid to separate B12 from the protein in your food.
2.B12 is combined with a protein manufactured by your body called Intrinsic Factor (IF) and gets absorbed by your liver.
Some people are unable to manufacture Intrinsic Factor, a condition called pernicious anemia, making it impossible to absorb Vitamin B12 from foods or oral supplements.
Foods that Contain B12
Vitamin B12 is primarily found in animal foods like meat, poultry eggs, fish and dairy. Processed foods are sometimes fortified with B12 to enhance their nutritional value. Vegans and people whose diets restrict their animal product consumption may find themselves deficient. Even the diets of meat eaters can fail to deliver all the B12 the body needs for optimal health.
Symptoms of B12 Deficiency
Symptoms of B12 deficiency include:
- Skin with a yellowish undertone
- Sore and reddened tongue, and mouth ulcers
- Tingling in your extremities
- Fatigue, lethargy and apathy
- Alterations in walking gait and movement
- Vision problems
- Depression and irritability
- Behavioral changes
- Dark thoughts
- Poor memory and decision making
- Dry and brittle skin, hair and nails
- Infertility
Benefits of B12 Injections and Infusions
For many, eating more meat and animal products to boost Vitamin B12 is not an option, but your body cannot get by without at least baseline levels. Vegans, people on calorie-restricted diets and those whose bodies cannot produce Intrinsic Factor need another solution.
B12 injections and IV Vitamin infusions provide a convenient and effective way to boost your B12 levels. Regular B12 injections can help you manage stress, improve your mood and outlook, and maintain optimal health.
Some important benefits of B12 injections include:
- Supports energy production and fights fatigue: B12 supports energy production within your cells by contributing to cellular health. It also contributes to healthy red blood cells for improved oxygen transport.
- Protects your heart and arteries. B12 reduces circulating levels of homocysteine, a compound linked to increased risk of heart attack and stroke.
- Promotes healthy skin, hair and nails. B12 reduces dry skin and acne, and promotes healthy skin. It also promotes strong shiny hair and strong nails.
- Protects the myelin sheath that covers nerve cells. Without a strong myelin sheath, nerves are exposed and become damaged, which may even lead to nerve cell death. Dead nerves disrupt signals to and from the brain, interfering with physical and mental performance.
- Improves your mood and fights depression. B12 enhances the production of serotonin, the feel-good hormone that regulates your mood.
- Protects brain cells and prevents dementia. B12 protects your brain cells in the same way it helps protect nerve cells, by protecting their myelin sheaths. Demyelination of brain cells is commonly seen in dementia patients.
- Supports DNA production to keep you looking and feeling young: Your cells age faster from wear and tear when your DNA fails to replicate itself. Free radicals, toxins, high blood sugar, and high levels of dietary omega-6 fats can all interfere with your ability to make new strands of DNA. B-12 supports DNA health, keeping your cells younger so you look and feel younger.
- Improves male reproductive health and semen quality. A 2017 study found that B12 supports healthy sperm by increasing sperm count and reducing damage to DNA. Researchers discovered that Vitamin B12 increased the functionality of male reproductive organs.
Vitamin B12 and Aging
Being deficient in Vitamin B12 can speed up aging by limiting B12 availability to mitochondria, tiny organelles found in all cells that make ATP, the energy molecule. A reduction in size, number and function of mitochondria is associated with aging, and supporting mitochondria with essential nutrients like B12 and NAD can potentially slow and even reverse the aging process.
In addition, high levels of B12 and NAD have been correlated with longer telomeres, specialized proteins at the ends of linear chromosomes. Shortened telomeres are a marker of older age. A recent study found both NAD and B12 to be effective in increasing telomere length, thereby slowing the aging process.
Vitamin B12 Benefits for Skin
B12 is necessary for the reproduction of cells throughout your body, including your skin cells. It is known to reduce skin cell inflammation and dryness, and B12 is found to be effective for treating and preventing skin conditions like acne, psoriasis and eczema. Regular B12 injections can help your skin stay smooth and elastic by nourishing your skin cells and promoting the production of new healthy cells.
Vitamin B12 Injections and Infusions in NYC
Being nutrient deficient can cause a myriad of physical and mental health problems that are easy to resolve. Many people end up taking medications to help them feel better when all they really need is to optimize their nutrition. InVita Cryo NYC offers B12 shots and micronutrient IV therapy to help keep you balanced, energetic and focused. Contact us today, and get back to feeling great with a B12 injection or Vitamin IV infusion at InVita Cryo NYC.
Resources
Banihani, Saleem Ali. “Vitamin B12 and semen quality.” Biomolecules 7.2 (2017): 42.
Praveen, Guruvaiah, et al. “Relative telomere length and mitochondrial DNA copy number variation with age: association with plasma folate and vitamin B12.” Mitochondrion 51 (2020): 79-87.
