Vitamin B12 is crucial for a healthy nervous system. Short term deficiency leads to fatigue and tingling in the hands and feet. If you’re deficient in it for long enough, it can result in permanent damage like dementia, blindness, and more. It’s also the one nutrient that you can’t get naturally on a first world vegan diet. That’s why we need to use B12 supplements (or eat foods fortified...
Vitamin B12 is the only “mandatory” supplement that vegans need to take, although you can technically get enough from fortified foods if you really pay attention. Because of where humans get B12 naturally, vegans don’t tend to get much (if any) from whole food sources. People in general get most of their B12 from animal products. The good news is that your body can store a lot of it. How...
Vitamin B12 supplements are especially important for vegans, so it makes sense to pay a bit of extra attention to when you’re consuming them. See my guide to the best vitamin B12 supplements if you need to find one. Vitamins are either water-soluble or fat-soluble. Fat-soluble vitamins absorb best alongside food (ideally with a decent amount of fat), while water-soluble vitamins have to...
Nature’s Made currently makes 9 different B12 supplements. The main differences between them are in the dosage and type of supplement (e.g. softgel vs tablet). Some of these are clearly not vegan, while others might be. Unless you’re really set on getting a Nature’s Made product, it’s probably easier just to go to my review of the best vegan vitamin B12...
It might seem at first that all vitamin B12 supplements are the same, but they are not. Many contain gelatin or other non-vegan ingredients. Others contain a suboptimal dosage, or a form of B12 that isn’t absorbed well. After compiling data on over 50 vitamin B12 supplements, I’ve narrowed them down to the very best ones on this page (that I’ve used personally since writing...
Just about all vegans should regularly take a vitamin B12 supplement, since we can’t get it from our diets (other than fortified foods). Unfortunately, there are tons of stories on social media that suggest there’s a link between acne outbreaks and taking vitamin B12 supplements. As it turns out, quite a bit of research backs this up. I’ll review it briefly and give you an idea of...
Vitamin B12 and estrogen have a complex relationship with each other. The research on this topic appears unclear because vitamin B12 can have a different effect on estrogen depending on how high estrogen levels are. In other words, it appears that vitamin B12 has a regulating effect on estrogen in the body, but more research is needed. I’ll break down the relevant research that I’ve read on...
There’s no substantial scientific evidence that shows that taking vitamin B12 supplements (injection or orally) causes constipation. Yet some people do claim that they’re constipated while taking vitamin B12 supplements. Are they wrong? I’m going to quickly walk you through what related evidence on B12 and constipation is available, and go over a few things that might explain why this is...