Vitamin B6 Essential for the Immune System

Vitamin B6 is one of the most important vitamins for the body. This water-soluble vitamin comes in pyridoxine, pyridoxal and pyridoxamine chemical forms and is essential for your body’s health. Vitamin B6 is involved in your system’s protein metabolism, red blood cell metabolism and nervous system. Vitamin B6 and your immune system are also linked.

Vitamin B6 and your immune system are linked because of the vitamin’s involvement with protein metabolism and cellular growth. Vitamins, as well as protein, calories and minerals, are key to a healthy immune system because they’re involved in the growth of white blood cells which fight off infections. Vitamin B6 helps your immune system keep the spleen, lymph nodes and thymus healthy; these organs, in turn, make your white blood cells.

Studies have shown that if your body has a vitamin B6 deficiency, your immune system will suffer. It will decrease your body’s antibody production and restrain your immune system’s response. In order to keep a healthy immune system, vitamin B6 should be in your diet. Men and women who are less than 50 years old should consume 1.3 milligrams a day, while men over 50 years of age should take 1.7 milligrams and women over the age of 50 should take 1.5 milligrams a day.

It is easy to consume foods with vitamin B6 to keep your immune system healthy, not to mention the rest of your body. Foods that contain vitamin B6 are:

• Baked potato
• Banana
• Chicken breast
• Oatmeal
• Rainbow trout
• Raw avocado
• Canned tuna
• Peanut butter