Structural Biochemistry, Chemistry of important organic molecules in Biochemistry, Vitamin B6

Introduction

B vitamin supplement tablets (Image: Ragesoss, CC BY-SA 3.0)

Vitamin B6, a naturally found water-soluble vitamin, is one of the most useful and versatile coenzymes in the body, performing a wide variety of functions that involve over 100 enzyme reactions. The focus of Vitamin B6 is protein metabolism. One of the significant roles it plays is cognitive development through synthesis with neurotransmitters. It also participates in glycogenolysis, immune function, and hemoglobin formation. Vitamin B6 is widely found in a large variety of food, most especially in the fish, liver and plenty of other organ meats, starchy vegetables like potato, and even fruit. It is even available as supplement multivitamins to be included daily diet. There are some risks in deficiency and inadequacy but they are all fairly uncommon since it is so involved is our daily diets.

Interactions with Medicine

Vitamin B6 has important factors to take notice when involved with medications. There are several types of medication that directly depend on the level of vitamin B6.
For example, Cycloserine, used to take tuberculosis, can combine with Pyridoxine (Vitamin b6) and help prevent or make mild the severe seizures and neurotoxicity that may occur. For "Antiepileptic Medications", they increase catabolism rate of all vitamin B6s, which leads to a lower plasma PLP concentration and hyperhomoscyten. This could lead to increase of seizures and epilepsy. Another example is "Theophyline", which treats or prevents various breathing problems, such as wheezing or asthma.

Pyridoxine structure (Image: User:Mysid , converted to PNG by Mugu-shisai, Public domain)

=== Vitamin B6 and Health ===

CARDIOVASCULAR DISEASE

Research has shown that certain levels of Vitamin B6 and B12 can have an affect on cardiovascular disease and in fact reduce it by lowering the homocysteine levels. Research is still in process currently, but various clinical trials have shown that there may be a relationship between the two, which can eventually lead to vitamin B6 to help reducing the risk and severity of cardiovascular disease.

CANCER

Other research has proved that low plasma vitamin B6 concentration is associated to an increased risk of various cancers.

COGNITIVE FUNCTION

Several studies have presented that there also may be a correlation between the vitamin B6 level status and cognitive decline, especially in the brain function of the elderly. Memory, mood, and other bodily functions are all effected by the levels of Vitamin B6.

Pyridoxal-phosphate-3D-balls (Image: Jynto and Ben Mills, Public domain)

Citation:
Dietary Supplement Fact Sheet: Vitamin B6; Office of Dietary Supplement National Institutes of Health. 2011 15 09.
<http://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/VitaminB6-HealthProfessional/>

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