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Comment by jfritsch1984 | Hacker News Reader

jfritsch1984·

Regarding B6. The last days that I tracked I had 3-4 times the RDA of B6 with ~4mg. Even if the absorption were really low I still meet what my body needs. And other sources report way better absorption rates.

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Have you measured it in the blood? Even if your B6 is fine, what about B12? That has even worse bioavailability from plants or supplements. Again, you need to measure it, furthermore B12 takes years to deplete.

My B12 was so high I had to lower my supplementation twice. Now I only take the spray every two weeks to allow my values to get down. But even on that dose my values are at the very top of the reference range.

The problem with B12 is more with low cobalt in the soil and genetically low absorption. There are now even bioactive plant forms of B12 like water lentil.

Who says that B12 supplementation works less good than eating meat? The last studies I read on supplementation all showed good results. Better results than among omnivorous people.

Vitamin B12 supplements require very high doses due to poor bio-availability. You have to ask yourself, could this be a healthy diet when you effectively need a pharmacy to maintain it? What else is your body missing out on that we might not be aware of?

That's why I say a plant-based diet is science experiment with no plausible basis in evolutionary history. I'm not saying it's bad per se, I'm saying we don't actually know if it's good.

Looks like you have done your homework and are not in fact deficient, at least in terms of those biomarkers and reference values. A lot of plant-based dieters are not that diligent, affluent or educated.

I think the current diet that 90% of the developed countries practice is the large experiment. Question is how long our health system can tolerate these rates of disease.

Also: Check how many people on SAD are fiber deficient.

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