Choline was once called vitamin B4, but then it stopped. It is part of the membranes of our cells and carries out various tasks for the nervous system.
You and I get choline from food, but we ourselves also know how to make it. So don't worry too much about choline.
If our liver worked a little better, then choline could be forgotten. He would just synthesize inside us and quietly do his important work.
It almost worked for women of childbearing age. Estrogens genes are tuned in such a peculiar way that the synthesis of choline in them goes easily and naturally. But children and all other adults were less fortunate. They have to get more choline from food.
The problem is that if there is little vitamin B9 in food, then choline comes to the rescue and is digested in the same furnace where vitamin B9 was supposed to work. So they depend on each other.
We eat choline in several different ways. If these are water-soluble compounds, then they are absorbed in the intestine, then float to the liver, accumulate there, in a clever way they are altered and sent throughout our body to integrate into the membranes cells.
If we ate fat-soluble phospholipids containing choline, then they are absorbed not into the blood, but into the lymph and travel intact through our body, settling in various organs, including the brain and placenta (this important).
Choline is constantly floating in our blood, and no one bothers with its concentration using any tests.
Even if we do not eat anything at all, choline will still float in the blood, because it is part of the membranes of all our cells.
We eat choline mainly with animal products: meat, fish, eggs, milk.
Choline is found in legumes, crucifers, nuts, seeds, and various other plant foods, but is more difficult to obtain from there. So vegans have one more concern.
Food manufacturers help us in this matter by generously flavoring their products with emulsifiers like lecithin. That contains phosphatidylcholine. It is a purified phospholipid with choline.
In fact, product manufacturers do not care about you and me, but about their product. They pour an emulsifier into it as a food additive, but by a lucky coincidence, this lecithin adds valuable choline to our diet.
It turns out that if you just eat, bothering with the composition of the product, you will inevitably run into choline, and there will be no shortage.
Nobody knows exactly how much choline we need. Well, that is, there are such tables, but this is all self-indulgence.
Manufacturers of dietary supplements take advantage of this and shove various compounds containing choline into their supplements. These additives are not tested and it is completely incomprehensible what and how is absorbed from there. It is only clear that you and I eat much more choline than the supplement manufacturer puts inside the supplements themselves. He would have gotten too big a pill.
Still, it is generally accepted that you and I, on average, eat less choline than our liver would like. Therefore, the liver is slightly strained, spending energy on the production of choline.
If you eat too little choline, then the liver is overstrained, it develops fatty hepatosis. They also say that muscles without choline suffer a lot.
In fact, choline deficiency is rare. It will be more likely in pregnant women. The baby sucks out choline from pregnant women. And what is very important, if pregnant women do not receive additional folic acid (vitamin B9), then their need for choline increases even more. Don't forget that choline takes on some of the responsibilities of vitamin B9.
If the baby in the womb does not receive enough choline, then his head will not be all right.
Heart and blood vessels
There was an idea that older people should be fed more choline so that they do not have heart and vascular diseases. They began to feed them this choline, and they suddenly began to die. Now they don't do that. It is suspected that the excess choline is digested by the intestinal microflora into all sorts of toxic substances. You can't trample against nature.
Nervous system
Some people were eager to adapt choline to prevent and treat dementia. On the one hand, choline is used to synthesize signaling molecules that communicate with our nerve cells. On the other hand, this choline itself integrates into cell membranes and makes them stronger.
They instantly stamped out drugs with choline, which they tried to stimulate the brains of people. At first it started to work out pretty well, like people's heads worked better. But then the results of new scientific research arrived, and it turned out that there was no difference. Maybe over time, something in this area will clear up, but so far nothing interesting. There are no miracles in the world.
Fatty hepatosis
It has long been noticed that from a lack of choline can be fatty hepatosis. They did all kinds of phospholipids for the liver and all that. But somehow it was not possible to cure hepatosis with choline. It looks like this business is somehow more complicated than we would like. So don't count on choline too much.
Choline bust
It is quite obvious that if biologically active food supplements are available, then someone will get overwhelmed by this business. And so it happened. Especially keen consumers of choline began to smell of fish, they vomited, blood pressure dropped, the liver collapsed. This is because excess choline was converted to toxins.
In short, if you try and eat more than 3.5 grams of choline per day, you will start to smell of herring, and your blood pressure will fall.
For the average person, it is enough just not to starve, eat a variety of foods, and he is guaranteed to receive choline.
It is more difficult with pregnant people (they are now called that). Pregnant women need to eat more folic acid and most likely a serving of choline should be added to these vitamins for pregnant women. To avoid.
Well, how do you feel about lecithin?
