Why the Internet Thinks Vitamin B6 Is Dangerous (And What the Science Actually Says)
Over the past year Vitamin B6 has suddenly become the “scary vitamin.” Posts claim nerve damage from normal supplements, videos warn that modest doses are unsafe, and most of the concern traces back to a new European safety guideline. The reaction makes sense at first glance because the European number is dramatically lower than the long-standing U.S. standard. The confusion comes from treating a regulatory decision as if it were a medical discovery.
To understand what happened, it helps to separate two very different questions. A physician asks at what dose humans actually get harmed. A regulator asks at what dose we can guarantee that no human anywhere could ever possibly be harmed, including extremely sensitive outliers. Doctors evaluate real-world clinical risk while regulators build population-wide guardrails. The Vitamin B6 panic came from blending those together.
The U.S. medical standard
In the United States the Institute of Medicine established a tolerable upper intake level for Vitamin B6 at 100 mg per day. That number comes from decades of clinical observations in which neuropathy appeared consistently only at very high chronic intakes, usually hundreds of milligrams daily for long periods. As intake drops below that range, evidence of harm becomes rare and inconsistent. Clinically the question has always been where nerve damage reliably occurs, and the answer has remained far above normal multivitamin doses.
The European change that triggered concern
In 2023 the European Food Safety Authority reassessed B6 and set a new upper limit of 12 mg per day. Headlines spread quickly because the difference between 12 mg and 100 mg feels alarming. However Europe did not discover new toxicity. Instead it used a precaution model designed to eliminate even theoretical population risk.
EFSA reviewed case reports where neuropathy appeared in some long-term users around roughly 50 mg per day. Rather than defining that as the danger threshold, regulators applied multiple safety factors to protect the most sensitive imaginable person over a lifetime. After repeatedly dividing the intake level they reached 12 mg, a number intended to remove even hypothetical risk. The European value is therefore a protection buffer, not a biological toxicity point.
Why this distinction matters
Regulatory limits must account for unknown diseases, unusual metabolism, supplement stacking, and decades of exposure. Clinical risk limits answer whether typical healthy adults experience harm at a given intake. When a precautionary buffer is interpreted as a toxicity threshold the public understandably hears that anything above 12 mg causes nerve damage, even though the review did not demonstrate that outcome.
Across medical literature the pattern is consistent: extremely high chronic doses repeatedly produce neuropathy, moderate doses occasionally appear in long-duration case reports, and typical supplement use does not show consistent clinical harm. The European number sits in a conservative safety zone rather than the demonstrated danger range.
Why Peregrune uses 33 mg
Runners have different metabolic demands than sedentary adults. Vitamin B6 is required for amino acid metabolism, neurotransmitter production, and glycogen utilization, all of which increase with endurance training. The goal of the Peregrune formula was not to megadose nutrients but to provide a functional performance level while remaining well below established clinical risk thresholds.
Thirty-three milligrams was selected deliberately. It sits far under the U.S. 100 mg upper limit yet high enough to support increased protein turnover and energy metabolism in trained athletes. Just as important, the formula consolidates nutrients into a single source so athletes are less likely to unintentionally stack multiple B-complex products, energy drinks, and recovery mixes that can push total intake into pharmacologic ranges over time. Most documented neuropathy cases involve cumulative intake from several products taken daily for years rather than one controlled formula.
The takeaway
Nothing new was discovered about Vitamin B6 toxicity. A regulatory body created an ultra-conservative intake level to eliminate even theoretical population risk, while clinical medicine continues to rely on observed human outcomes. Understanding that difference separates precautionary policy from demonstrated biological harm. Vitamin B6 remains an essential nutrient, excessive chronic intake can cause problems, and context matters more than a single number on a label.
