Vitamin B5, also called pantothenic acid and pantothenate, is vital to living a healthy life. Like all B complex vitamins, B5 helps the body convert food into energy. B5 is naturally found in many food sources. “Pantothenic,” in fact, means “from everywhere,” because the vitamin is available in so many food sources.
Benefits
vitamin b5 supplier a multitude of benefits to the human body. It is found in living cells as a coenzyme A (CoA), which is vital to numerous chemical reactions, according to a study published in the journal Vitamins and Hormones.
“Pantothenic acid is typically used in combination with other B vitamins in the form of a vitamin B complex formulation,” said Dr. Sherry Ross, OB/GYN and Women’s Health Expert at Providence Saint John’s Health Center in Santa Monica, California. The other vitamins in the vitamin B complex are vitamin B1 (thiamine), vitamin B2 (riboflavin), vitamin B3 (niacin), vitamin B5 (pantothenic acid), vitamin B6 (pyridoxine), vitamin B12 (cyanocobalamin), and folic acid, she added.
Sources
Some good sources of pantothenic acid include mushrooms, legumes and lentils, avocados, milk, eggs, cabbage, organ meats such as liver and kidneys, white and sweet potatoes, whole-grain cereals and yeast, according to the U.S. National Library of Medicine. In addition to those sources, the Linus Pauling Institute at Oregon State University also lists egg yolks, broccoli, fish, shellfish, chicken and yogurt.
The University of Maryland Medical Center says the best sources of vitamin B5 include brewer’s yeast, corn, cauliflower, kale, tomatoes, split peas, peanuts, soybeans, sunflower seeds, lobster and salmon.
WHAT DOES BETA HYDROXYBUTYRATE DO?
As we learned earlier, beta hydroxybutyrate is the first substrate that kicks the metabolic state of ketosis into action. Revisiting the scenario from before, if you either take supplemental forms or if your body is making beta hydroxybutyrate, BHB is able to be processed in your body with the result being lots of clean energy.
Beta hydroxybutyrate floats around in your blood, and importantly, can cross different barriers to be able to be turned into energy at all times. One of the most important areas where this happens is in the brain. The blood-brain barrier (BBB) is usually a very tightly regulated interface that doesn’t allow the transfer of many molecules, but since BHB is such a rock star and so hydrophilic, your brain knows to let it in so it can bring energy to the party at any time. This is one of the main reasons why increased levels of ketosis lead to improved mental clarity, focus and reduction in neurodegenerative diseases.
How BHB turns into energy is a fairly simple process. As we’ve mentioned, beta hydroxybutryate eventually leads to energy production after you consume it or after your body breaks stored body fat down. It does this by going into the cell, entering the mitochondria (energy factories) at which stage it cleaves the carboxyl acid group and becomes acetoacetate . Acetoacetate turns into acetoacetyl-CoA, which then is cleaved to acetone and acetyl-CoA. Acetyl-CoA is the whole reason we want BHB in the first place. This jumps into what is bhb powder called the Kreb’s cycle (don’t you remember any of your biochemistry classes?) and is churned into ATP the energy currency of your cells.
There you have it. BHB is important because it can freely float throughout your body in your blood, crossing many tissues where other molecules can’t, then it is processed into energy. BHB = ATP = energy.
WHEN TO TAKE BETA HYDROXYBUTYRATE
Being in ketosis all of the time is great and all, but there are some other times where you want to load your body up with some ketone bodies like betahydroxybutyrate.
