What it is
Vitamin B5 is a water-soluble vitamin.
What it does
Vitamin B5 is involved in the synthesis of enzymes and proteins that are important for fatty acid metabolism.
Recommended intake
The recommended intake for vitamin B5 is 5mg per day for men and women who aren’t lactating. Lactation can increase intake requirements for vitamin B5.
Likelihood of tracking completeness: Very low
Vitamin B5 is not a nutrient that food manufacturers are required to disclose on nutrition labels. The vast majority of food and beverage manufacturers do not voluntarily list vitamin B5 content on nutrition labels, so most branded products in the MacroFactor database lack information on vitamin B5. So, if you’d like to accurately track your vitamin B5 intake, you’ll need to make a point of mostly tracking “common foods,” which come from research-grade databases that have full nutrient reporting.
For more on when you can track using branded foods versus common foods when you’re trying to accurately monitor your intake of particular nutrients, you should check out this article.
Likelihood of insufficient intake: Probably low
There’s not a ton of data on typical vitamin B5 intake, in part because vitamin B5 deficiencies are very rare (so there hasn’t been much need to characterize vitamin B5 intake patterns). But, the rarity of vitamin B5 deficiencies implies that most adults probably consume adequate amounts of vitamin B5.
For more on nutrients with a greater likelihood of insufficient or excessive intake, you should check out this article.
Signs of deficiency
Symptoms of vitamin B5 intake are primarily neurological, including numbness or burning sensations in the hands and feet, fatigue or restlessness, headaches, and poor sleep.
Good sources
Some of the best sources of vitamin B5 include mushrooms, yeast and yeast-derived products (like nutritional yeast and marmite), liver, watercress, cauliflower, blackberries, zucchini, snow peas, and celery.
Learn more
If you’d like to learn more about micronutrients generally, there’s a five-part series on the MacroFactor website you might enjoy.