Debate continues on vitamin B6

You accurately paraphrase the current debate over vitamin B6 but fail to discuss the uses of B6 supplementation.1Editorial. Still time for rational debate about vitamin B6.Lancet. 1998; 351: 1523Summary Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (9) Google Scholar You seem to accept almost at face value the patronising assumption by Jeff Rooker, the Food Safety Minister, that B6 is only for “depression and premenstrual syndrome”. This ignores the many studies that have found substantial B6 deficiency in children and the elderly2Wenlock RW Disselduff MM Skinner RK Knight I The diets of British school-children. Crown Copyright, London1986Google Scholar, 3Department of HealthReport on health and social subjects 16: nutrition and health in old age. H M Stationery Office, London1979Google Scholar and prevalence of biochemical deficiency in adults of about 25%.4Bender DA Vitamin B6 requirements and recommendations.Eur J Clin Nutr. 1989; 43: 289-309PubMed Google Scholar If a vitamin is a vitamin it must be useful for correcting the specific deficiency, whatever its consequences may be. The suspicion of partiality about the Committee on Toxicity becomes more plausible when one considers the issue of homocysteine. This intermediate metabolite may well turn out to be of greater importance for ischaemic heart disease than cholesterol, blood pressure, and most well-recognised risk factors, and it appears to be accessible to treatment with B6 (at a 100 mg-dose) together with B12 and folic acid.5Selhub J Jacques PF Wilson PWF Sha JR Stabler SP Allen RH Vitamin status and intake as primary determinants of homocysteinemia in an elderly population.JAMA. 1993; 270: 2693-2698Crossref PubMed Scopus (1880) Google Scholar When serious questions are being raised about the safety of statins and calcium-channel blockers, a finding that much heart disease could be prevented by taking B vitamins would seriously threaten more than $10 billion in pharmaceutical-industry earnings. Is the Committee impervious to such industry pressures? You also accept the fallacy that there is no good evidence for the efficacy of B6 in any disease apart from depression and premenstrual syndrome; this ignores important studies in autism, pregnancy outcome, asthma, sickle-cell anaemia–to name but a few.