Benefits And Uses Of Choline

There are many benefits of adding choline to your diet. This is especially true if you suffer from certain health conditions pertaining to the liver, heart, or neurological diseases. Your body needs choline in order to maintain proper cell functions. In addition, this nutrient aids in your body's ability to properly maintain neurotransmissions. A lack of choline in the diet can cause severe health issues.

A lack of choline in the diet will have negative effects on your liver and cell DNA. In addition, lack of choline in the diet has been associated with high levels of cholesterol, fatty acid build up in the liver, increased cancer risk, and potential memory problems. All of these issues require further research in order to establish the correlation between choline deficiency and the above listed ailments.

Promising research is ongoing into the benefits and uses of choline. Dr. Steven H. Zeisel MD, PhD of the University of North Carolina is the foremost authority in this area. Preliminary results in rodent testing seems to indicate that there is a direct relationship between choline supplementation as a juvenile and a reduced risk for neurological diseases such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's later on in life. The benefit of the supplementation did not decrease even if choline supplements were discontinued later on in life.

Other research is indicating that there is a benefit of taking choline as well as folic acid supplements before becoming pregnant and during early pregnancy in order to help avoid defects such as spina bifida. The supplement should be taken if you are considering getting pregnant. Defects such as these occur during the 21st-27th day into the pregnancy. This is prior to when most women even realize that they are pregnant.

There are also research results that might indicate a link between choline and cholesterol build-up. Choline is an important nutrient in the metabolism of homocysteine into methionine. The body creates betaine through the processing of choline. Betaine is what converts the homocysteines into methionine. An increased level of homocysteines in the body results in cardio-vascular diseases related to hypertension and plaque buildup in the arteries. Although more research is needed in this area to confirm any benefits, the initial results are promising.

Overall there seems to be many benefits and uses of choline in the diet. A supplement of 550mg a day for men and 425 for women is considered adequate intake (AI). Perhaps the addition of this nutrient into our diets should be looked at carefully.