Vitamin B5 is often referred to as the "anti-stress vitamin" because of the effect that it has on the activity of the immune system. It improves the body's ability to withstand stressful conditions.
Vitamin B5, also known as pantothenic acid, is known to enhance alertness, cognition, energy, hearing, vision, elevate mood, lower anxiety, and normalize healthy cholesterol levels.
It is part of the Vitamin B Group and is essential in the breakdown of fats and proteins, and in promoting your health in your nervous system and your mental state.
When you and your body experiences stress, it manufactures cortisol, often called the fight or flight hormone. Cortisol provides the energy that will be needed to respond to a situation that the mind assumes as dangerous, whether the response is to run or to stand and face the situation. If neither fight nor flight is relevant or necessary, (ongoing stressful lifestyle without immediate life-threatening danger) the energy will still be created but then unfortunately be stored in the body and it could either speed up the metabolism or convert the energy into fat, which can cause weight gain.
A chronic excess of cortisol levels can damage the body but when B5, or pantothenic acid, is present in sufficient quantity. It can regulate the production of cortisol and thereby protect the body against the deleterious side effects of this hormone.
Vitamin B5 is vital for Stressful lifestyles.
Vitamin B5 is particularly helpful to students and executives who want to boost cognition, learning and memory, because it raises acetylcholine levels in your brain. It can also produce a noticeable increase in mental clarity and give you a significant energy boost mentally. You feel more awake and alert when you use additional Vitamin B5. Without the side affects you would get from stimulants like caffeine.
Benefits of Vitamin B5 include:
1. Enhance alertness
2. Enhance the cognitive ability
3. Improve the brain’s energy
4. Improve hearing and vision
5. Elevate mood,
6. Lower anxiety
7. Normalize healthy cholesterol levels
8. Regulating your cortisol stress hormones
The efficiency, and safety, and all listed information are all backed up with studies and linked to clinical data:
Pantothenic acid in health and disease - PubMed (nih.gov)
Pantothenic Acid in Health and Disease - ScienceDirect
Biosynthesis of Pantothenic Acid and Coenzyme A (nih.gov)
Pantothenic Acid - Health Professional Fact Sheet (nih.gov)
Pantothenic Acid | Linus Pauling Institute | Oregon State University