B12 for Anxiety

Some studies have found people experiencing anxiety have lower levels of vitamin B12, and that people with anxiety and depression at more likely to have a vitamin B12 deficiency.

One 2000 study found that men with vitamin B12 deficiency who recently lost a loved one reported higher levels of anxiety and depression. Another found that people who regularly eat yeast-based spreads like Vegemite—which are often fortified with B12—were less anxious than those who don’t eat them. And in a 2017 study, more than half of the participants with depression and anxiety had a vitamin B12 deficiency, even though their average age was under 60, a population that usually has only a 4 percent rate of deficiency.

How Might Vitamin B12 Affect Anxiety?

Otherwise known as cobalamin, vitamin B12 plays an indispensable role in many bodily functions, including the formation of red blood cells, nerve function, and DNA production. All of these are linked to mood.

Nerve Function

Vitamin B12—which is found in a wide variety of animal foods like fish, meat, poultry, and dairy— contributes to the production of myelin, the fatty substance that insulates neurons. This coating enables your nerves to communicate with each other.

If your B12 is lacking, your mental processing speed can slow down. A sluggish brain may struggle to calm itself when anxiety strikes. The communication is slower, so people may not be able to control that emotion. It becomes a vicious cycle. One thought would trigger more anxiety, and more anxiety would trigger more negative thoughts.

Brain Health

Vitamin B12 also helps turn an unusable amino acid, called homocysteine, into a usable compound. Without adequate B12, homocysteine levels rise.

Homocysteine is very prone to oxidation, the same process that occurs when metal rusts, so it actually destroys our proteins, our cells. It destroys brain chemicals.

In a study of 6,000 people in the Journal of Nutrition, elevated homocysteine wasn’t linked to anxiety, but it was correlated with depression.

According to the Anxiety and Depression Association of America, nearly 50 percent of people diagnosed with depression are also diagnosed with an anxiety disorder. “Anxiety is a prerequisite of depression,” says Teodoro Bottiglieri, Ph.D., co-author of Homocysteine: Related Vitamins and Neuropsychiatric Disorders. “Before you get to the point of clinical depression, there’s typically—not always, but in many cases—a period where [people] are very anxious.”

DNA and Red Blood Cell Production

Vitamin B12 is needed to create red blood cells, which deliver oxygen to the brain. That means B12 deficiency can lead to a decline in your healthy red blood cell count—which equals lower levels of oxygen being delivered to your brain. B12 is also needed for DNA production. If your body isn’t able to make enough high-quality DNA, new cells might lack the genetic material they need. When [you] don’t have enough of the precursors to produce the brain chemicals needed—including mood-regulating dopamine and serotonin—then [you may have] heightened anxiety.