Your body couldn’t survive without this underappreciated vitamin

Life-Giving B

“Now here’s a shocker!”

That’s how HSI Panelist Allan Spreen, M.D., led off an e- mail that included a remarkable new study in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

He added: “If this keeps up, we’ll have to start calling them health nuts!”

Dr. Spreen is referring to a time, not so long ago, when a study singing the cancer-fighting praises of a vitamin was virtually unheard of in JAMA.

But times change. And now this vitamin–which Dr. Spreen says was once dismissed as useless–is seen for the important powerhouse it really is.

B6…take a bow. You earned it.

Modest superstar

The JAMA study is a review and meta-analysis of 13 studies. Nine examined B6 intake, and four examined blood levels of PLP, the active form of B6. All the studies compared B6 status to cases of colorectal cancer.

This isn’t the first time B6 has made an e-Alert appearance as a colorectal cancer fighter. In fact, some of these studies I’ve told you about are likely included in the JAMA analysis:

• A Harvard Medical School study showed that subjects with the highest B6 levels had a much lower risk of colorectal cancer compared to subjects with the lowest levels
• Tufts University research found that even a modest deficiency of key components in the B complex (including B6) increased colorectal cancer risk
• In a large study from Scotland’s University of Edinburgh, high levels of B6 intake reduced colorectal cancer risk by more than 20 percent
• Another Harvard trial found colorectal cancer risk significantly reduced among subjects who had the highest dietary intake of folate and B6

In the new JAMA meta-analysis from Sweden’s Karolinska Institutet…well, you can see exactly where this is going: Higher B6 intake and blood PLP levels were linked to lower colorectal cancer risk–and the higher the PLP levels, the stronger the link.

If lowering colorectal cancer risk was your only health concern, A) You’d be very lucky, and B) This JAMA summation of B6 research would be all the reason you’d need to make sure your daily intake was high.

But B6 is no ordinary vitamin.

Twelve years ago, John M. Ellis, M.D., put B6 on the map with a groundbreaking book titled “Vitamin B6 Therapy: Nature’s Versatile Healer.” In it, Dr. Ellis explains that PLP is a coenzyme that activates many crucial enzyme systems. In fact, nearly 120 enzymes need B6 to function properly, and 19 out of your body’s 20 amino acids require B6.

That’s why it’s no surprise that B-6 also plays a key role in many other health issues, including immune function, hormone function, and cognitive function, as well as the prevention of heart disease, depression, kidney stones, breast cancer, and prostate cancer.

Dr. Ellis believes that for most people, B6 supplements are needed to keep levels of the vitamin high, even though there are many dietary sources. The two best sources are bananas and chicken breast meat. Fish, red meat, beans, and a wide variety of other plant foods also contain B6.

To Your Good Health,

Jenny Thompson

Source:
“Vitamin B6 and Risk of Colorectal Cancer” Journal of the American Medical Association, Vol. 303, No. 11, 3/17/10, jama.ama-assn.org