The New (Hidden) Disease—B6 Toxicity 💊
And why it’s going to be so hard to fix…
Lightheadedness
Fatigue
Peripheral neuropathy (like the kind you get with diabetes)
Allergies
Brain fog
Food intolerances
Heat intolerance
Blurred vision
Blood pressure dysregulation (both highs and lows)
POTS
Exercise intolerance
These are all symptoms of what I consider a new, underrecognized pandemic. This is not a viral pandemic, mind you, nor anything that’s going to be easily manipulated by media pundits and fearmongers on the news.
This is a much more insidious illness. It’s an illness caused by your favorite electrolyte powder, your favorite fortified cereal, multivitamin, energy drink, etc.…
And fixing it is going to take a lot of work—not only at the individual level, but also at the societal level.
Because fixing it will require overhauling some of the most central, stubborn ills plaguing modern society.
A personal story
I was first exposed to this pandemic in myself.
Years ago, I found myself—while reasonably young, non-diabetic, and overall metabolically healthy—suddenly to develop a peripheral neuropathy. I was having an intermittent, yet unmistakable, ice-like burning of my toes. Without much thought, I attributed it, at first, to a recent lower back injury, then to improperly fitted shoes, but when the tingling failed to improve despite healing of the original injury, I decided to look elsewhere.
My symptoms became worse, in fact. They developed further. I began to develop a profound fatigue and lightheadedness that worsened after both eating and exercise.
A food intolerance, perhaps? I thought, given my postprandial fatigue (fatigue after eating). But a food intolerance wouldn’t typically cause post-exertional fatigue like I was experiencing.
A nutrient deficiency? I thought, given my postexertional fatigue. But a nutrient deficiency typically wouldn’t cause this type of postprandial fatigue.
Things continued:
I developed a worsening intolerance to heat. Being in hot environments (like a car without the AC) would make me feel physically quite terrible, but I ignored it, for the most part, chalking it up to dehydration.
“Physician, health thyself,” was a lesson I had never really learned that well, apparently. For I continued to generally ignore my own physical maladies, attributing them to insufficient sleep, a heavy schedule, mental stress…
The last straw came one day as I was working on my computer.
As I read through the lines of the review article: “…The groups used 50 mg of a high potency extract standardized to…” I noticed an unquestionable blurriness of my vision.
I closed one eye at a time, comparing the vision between the two. That confirmed it: The left eye’s vision was distinctly blurrier than the right’s.
And that symptom had not been there just one day ago. I had sudden onset blurry vision.
At this point, I couldn’t ignore my symptoms any longer. In combination, my symptoms looked like damage to my autonomic nerves and peripheral nerves. Dysautonomia and peripheral neuropathy. All I had to do was figure out what environmental toxin—or genetic defect, or both—I was dealing with.
Long story short, it didn’t take long for me to trace it back to a 25-50 mg vitamin B6 dose I had started taking intermittently, months prior, as part of my migraine protocol at that time. B6 has the potential to damage both autonomic and peripheral nerves.
Since then, I’ve had the blessing of being able to help many others identify and treat their own cases of B6 toxicity.
What are the signs of B6 toxicity?
Just consider the symptoms I mentioned above:
Lightheadedness, fatigue, peripheral neuropathy (like the kind you get with diabetes), allergies, brain fog, food intolerances, heat intolerance, blurred vision, blood pressure dysregulation (including POTS), exercise intolerance, etc.
These are all possible effects of B6 overload. Exactly what constellation of symptoms you experience will be very much dependent on your individual genetic and environmental makeup, but you can get an overall idea from the list above. Generally, these symptoms tend to fit into the boxes of autonomic nervous system dysregulation and peripheral nerve damage. But there are some other possible symptoms, as well, that don’t necessarily fit into one of those boxes.
Exactly how to treat B6 toxicity at the individual level is not something I’m going to talk about here.
Though, generally, speaking, it’s a combination of addressing unique weaknesses that are the result of both genetic and environmental factors. Also, while I respect the viewpoint, I do not agree that treating B6 overload is as simple as just removing the B6 from your supplements and food (though that is an important initial step). I’ve worked with this issue enough over the years to know that there is a lot more that can be done to get people feeling better much faster and more effectively.
I intend to produce some more work on my own approach to B6 toxicity in the near future (I may consider producing a short subscription course on the topic at some point, for those interested. Feel free to join my email list if you’d like to be informed of any updates on this, or send my team an email with any questions).
But, more importantly, I do not think that treating B6 toxicity can be limited to individuals treating themselves. This is really a societal issue drawing from the very underpinnings of our modern, bankrupt approach to health and medicine.
The Real Treatment for B6 Toxicity
Think about this:
There are many people who develop B6 toxicity without ever taking a single B complex or multivitamin supplement. Without any of that, they find themselves suddenly stuck in the dark web of dysautonomia and peripheral neuropathy that characterizes the illness, often not realizing it until years, even decades later, because no one ever thought to get a plasma B6 blood test.
Why do these people develop B6 toxicity without ever intentionally taking B6?
Yes, there are genetic factors. Yes, there are a myriad of lifestyle and nutritional factors at play. Yes, pyridoxine (the inactive from of B6) vs p5p (the active form) is an important distinction that deserves its own discussion. But the biggest issue, arguably the elephant in the room in most online discussions of B6 toxicity, is the following:
A bankrupt approach to health and wellness.
I’m not talking about Big Pharma here. I’m not talking about the ills of the conveyor belt, factory approach to medicine that is so prevalent—ubiquitous, in fact—in the modern West (and currently being exported to the rest of the world).
We all already know that’s bad.
I’m talking about our response to all that. Our response to Big Pharma, to factory line medicine, has been, arguably, equally dysfunctional. It has not addressed the very fundamental issue that plagues Modern Medicine.
We think that the Lifestyle Gurus, the $100 Superfood Mixes, the Podcast “Experts,” the One-Size-Fits-All Wellness Programs that we’ve all so unwittingly subscribed to, in a reactive response to the ills of Modern Medicine, are an effective response.
They are not.
In fact, they are, at their core, guilty of the very same fatal flaw of Modern Medicine:
Lack of individual specificity. Lack of personalization. Lack of depth and authenticity.
In response to the dogmatic push by the Modern Medicine idealogues for everyone to lower salt 🧂consumption in response to rising blood pressure values in the population as a whole, our Lifestyle Gurus retorted that salt is actually the best thing in the world, absolutely everyone needs more of it, and, while you’re at it, purchase my $60 Salt Superfood Mix to fix your low-salt woes.
In response to the claim that cholesterol and saturated fat are basically cardiovascular death in food form, our Diet Experts responded that meat 🍖, and only meat, is the right diet for absolutely everyone, and, while you’re at it, check out my $70 Grass Fed Organ Meats mix to fix your plant-based problems.
In response to people wanting a natural solution to their chronic fatigue and stress—an alternative to the prescription meds and antidepressants prescribed by their doctors—our Supplement Saviors threw ashwagandha and similar herbs into absolutely everything. “Ashwagandha Stress Support” 🌿 replaced your daily Zoloft. It was better, yes, but still not right.
And that’s where B6 comes in.
(Note: I do think that many, many people would benefit from increased salt consumption, carnivore diets, and herbal supplements like ashwagandha, but the question is: Who? and How? and When?)
Ask your favorite search engine: “What vitamins should I take for energy?”
The search will shoot out generic recommendations for B vitamins. You’ll find multiple sites telling you to start a B complex and to take additional B12 and B6 on top to kick start your energy-producing metabolic pathways.
Walk through the supplement isle at your grocery store: You’ll find a myriad supplements for “energy” and “focus” (without naming any one in particular) that contain quite high dosages of vitamin B6.
Check out some of the electrolyte powders in the drinks isle: B6 there as well.
It’s a favorite as well for depressive symptoms, sleep, and ironically, peripheral neuropathy.
And without any further deep evaluation, without determining whether you as an individual really would benefit, you started a dosage of 10-100 mg of B6 per day.
And, slowly and insidiously, without you noticing it, you started developing many of the same symptoms I described above: lightheadedness, fatigue, food intolerances, new allergic symptoms, neuropathy that you attributed to your diabetes, and so on.
You developed B6 overload without even knowing it.
Where was the original problem in this chain of events? The fatal flaw?
It was in our superficial approach to health wellness.
B6 (and similar vitamins) is peddled as a “natural,” one-size-fits-all solution to fatigue, depression, sleep issues, and so on, and our health gurus, supplement manufacturers, drink companies, etc. therefore weave it indiscriminately into so many of the products we consume on a regular basis, assuming that it’ll fix our problems (or at least telling us that it will).
It might for some, but not for most.
And worst of all, it’s perpetuating the same, unhealthy, highly dysfunctional approach to health that’s plagued the human race for at least much of the last century.
We need to step back from that and evaluate, genuinely and adeptly, what we’re doing to ourselves as individuals and as a society.
People are not made well by throwing poorly evaluated, one-size-fits-all solutions at the human race in YouTube videos and podcasts that reach 1 million viewers and more.
Fixing our society is going to require a little bit more work than that.
I hope to be writing more about fixing B6 toxicity at the individual level in the near future. Subscribe to our email list if you’d like to be updated at that time.
Keep in mind that this is not official medical advice. No doctor-patient relationship is established through this article or through any other information provided on this website.
