Question: I am allergic to both nutritional and baking yeast. Is there a B complex supplement I can take that doesn't have yeast in it? I know I’m deficient in vitamin B, so please advise on how I should get more?

Dr. Hibberd's answer:

High quality B complex vitamins should not contain yeast. You need to select a high quality multi-vitamin or adjust your dietary intake to improve your B vitamin intake.

Do you know why you are B vitamin deficient? You should be sure you find out why and address this directly with your doctor.

Baking yeast is used in the baking industry and its ability to reproduce is de-activated by the heating process. Nutritional yeast is a deactivated yeast product that contains B vitamins, minerals, folic acid, selenium, and zinc. It contains no animal products, making it a popular component in vegan prepared foods.

Nutritional yeast has also been popular in the nutraceutical industry mainly because of its vitamin and mineral components. As an inactive product, nutritional yeast lacks the baker’s yeast ability to leaven food or raise bread or baked foods. Adding yeast to vitamin products will scavenge B vitamins, and excessive yeast intake can even lead to a net vitamin B deficiency.

Your best choice is to select foods rich in B vitamins. Foods containing rich in vitamin B (with recommended serving sizes) include: Beef (10 ounces); wild salmon (half of a filet); oats (one cup); tuna (1 can in water); rurkey breast (four ounces); egg (one hard boiled); banana (one cup mashed); potato (one large baked); avocado (one cup pureed); kidney beans (one cup); squash (one cup); spinach (one cup); almonds (one cup); and milk (one cup).

It is generally very important to avoid unsupervised B vitamin supplementation. An oversupply of one may induce a deficiency jn other B vitamins. Also, there are more variables than just vitamin intake that need to be considered. For example, Vitamin B-12 needs a digestive protein to be efficiently absorbed in our diet. So those with pernicious anemia (anemia caused by B-12 deficiency caused by an insufficiency of the protein) often must their physician replace this vitamin by monthly injection.

The real answer to your question rests with correcting the disorder that is inducing your B vitamin deficiency. Everything else is just Band-Aid therapy.