Because the brain cannot properly utilize glucose without the B vitamins (causing a slackening of brain chemicals important to mental sharpness), low levels of the B vitamins are being associated with rage, instability, vague fears, nervousness, manic depression, heightened risk of cardiovascular disease, depressed immune function, mental fatigue and paranoia, especially in teenagers.

      Combinations of the B vitamin folic acid and B12 can apparently offer protection against lung cancer.
  [Dr. Douglas Heimburger, U. of Alabama Medical Center, Birmingham; Dr. Henk van den Berg of the Dept. of Clinical Biochemistry at the TNO-CLVO Toxicology and Nutrition Institute in Zeist, Netherlands; Dr. Hemminge Bhagavan, Hoffman-LaRoche Pharmaceuticals in New Jersey ]

      Dr. Charles Butterworth Jr., of the U. of Alabama/Birmingham, studied 464 women infected with the HP virus, implicated in 80% of cervical cancer cases. He found that those with lower levels of folacin in red blood cells were 5x more likely to develop cell changes leading to cervical cancer than those with higher red blood levels of the B vitamin.
      Dr. Butterworth: "It's a fascinating peek at how viruses and a lack of nutrients may work together to foster cancer; kind of a double whammy...when folacin is lacking, chromosomes are more apt to break at 'fragile' points. This lets the virus slip into the healthy cell's genetic material, promoting the initial changes preceeding cancer. Once disease occurs, though, dosing with folacin supplements has no apparent benefit."

      A finding in the 8/19/92 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association suggests that folic acid alone, or in combination with vitamin B6, can reduce an important risk factor for heart attacks.
      Dr. Meir Stampfer, of the Harvard School of Public Health:   "Men who had abnormally high levels of homocysteine (a product of protein metabolism) had 3.4 times the risk of heart attack. This was unrelated to other coronary risk factors. B6/folic acid can reduce levels of homocysteine into the normal range."

      B5 taken in combination with choline has a dramatic effect on intelligence. Two-thirds of the subjects in an experiment conducted by the Optimum Nutrition Institute in London experienced an increase in IQ, one subject by as as much as 35 percent.

      Dr. Vicken Sahakian, an endrocrinology fellow at the U. of North carolina/Chapel Hill, in a study at the U. of Iowa showed that expectant mothers may be able to alleviate nausea and vomiting associated with severe morning sickness with vitamin B6.
      Thirty-one women, less than five months pregnant, took 25 milligrams of B6 every eight hours. Twenty-eight others with symptoms were given a placebo. All were asked to rate symptom severity 4x/day.
      Vomiters in the B6 group dropped by half; the placebo number increased. Nausea was eased in severe sufferers, but not in mild to moderate cases.
      It's thought that B6 interfers with elevated hormone levels in pregnancy that affect brain areas that trigger vomiting.

      Researchers at the Scripps Clinic in California and the Cleveland Clinic have found that oral doses of vitamin B12 can block allergic reactions from sulfites as well as antiasthmatic drugs. Allergic reactions were prevented in 60 to 70 percent of the patients who were first given the vitamin then exposed to the sulfites.