28Jul/111
What is the difference between B vitamins and caffeine?
I've noticed that a lot of energy vitamins have B vitamins or niacin instead of caffeine. Do these give the same effect as caffeine, or am I better off buying a pack of vitamins with caffeine?
July 28th, 2011 - 23:47
B Vitamins are co-factors for cellular energy. That is they are essential for us to turn our food intake into ATP (our energy within the cell).
Caffeine is a CNS stimulant. It directly stimulates the nervous system and rather quickly. It has nothing to do with energy production.
Niacin is a B-vitamin, it is B-3.
Unless you are deficient in B Vitamins, they will have no effect on you. It is more hype or marketing gimmicks with the 1000+ % of B-vitamins. The effect you feel off energy supplements is the Caffeine, Sugar, and some of the other directly stimulatory CNS ingredients. It isn’t the B-Vitmains.
You would be better off going with just Caffeine, but B-Vitamins are cheap to manufacture so it surely doesn’t hurt you to take them in excess. Your body will excrete whatever it doesn’t need in the urine.
Take care,