While most vitamins and minerals have very ordinary, even drab, appearances, vitamin B2, also known as riboflavin, is an exception. If you went out and bought vitamin B2 it would come as an orange powder, but add riboflavin to water and it takes on a fluorescent, yellow-green color.
1) As an essential nutrient vitamin B2 aids in the production of energy.
2) Heat can cause a loss of vitamin B2.
3) Much more of a threat than heat, light destroys vitamin B2.
4) To protect vitamin B2 foods that are rich in it should be kept in opaque containers.
5) When vitamin B2 rich foods are being cooked they should be covered in an additional effort to keep from losing riboflavin to light.
6) It is thought that vitamin B2 may be effective in the treatment of migraine headaches.
7) Vitamin B2 acts as an antioxidant.
8) Without enough vitamin B2 present, the antioxidant glutathione peroxidases may not function properly.
9) After being metabolized, vitamin B2 assists in cellular respiration.
10) Vitamin B2 may have anti-atherosclerotic properties.
A deficiency of vitamin B2 is rare for human beings in most parts of the world. Not having enough vitamin B2, however, does bring with it some visible signs. Common signs of a vitamin B2 deficiency can include pale skin, cracked lips, and areas of the body where the skin becomes scaly, red and greasy. An especially alarming sign of a lack of vitamin B2 is when the sufferer’s tongue gets a magenta tone to it. All of the above, however, is very rare because we do not need a lot of vitamin B2 and it is available to us in many commonly eaten foods.
When a deficiency of vitamin B2 does occur, those most likely to be suffer from it are people who do not consume enough riboflavin through milk, protein, animal sources, or eating sufficient amounts of foods that are supplemented with vitamin B2.
There is no documented danger of toxic reactions occurring if large amounts of vitamin B2 are taken. It would be hard to ingest too much riboflavin because the human digestive tract is not able to absorb more than 20 mg of vitamin B2 - from any size dose. The rest of the excess vitamin B2 is eliminated through the urine.
Good sources of vitamin B2 are beef liver, oysters, dark green leafy vegetables, broccoli, mushrooms, lean meat, non-fat milk, and salmon. It is recommended that adult males ingest 1.3 mg of vitamin B2 per day and adult females get 1.1 mg of vitamin B2 per day.
Copyright © Dennis Becker, 2004.
This article may be reproduced in its entirety in your ezine or on your web site, as long as this resource box, which includes the copyright notification and live (clickable) URL below, remains intact. It is one of the many "Top 10" articles about vitamins, minerals, and herbs, more of which can be found at:
http://www.a1-vitamins-and-supplements.com
