Let’s talk about choline: an important nutrient that you may never have heard of.
What is choline?
Choline is sometimes lumped together with the B vitamins, and while it is not technically a B vitamin, it does share some characteristics common to that family of nutrients. We humans have the ability to manufacture choline in our livers (which is called de novo synthesis, or synthesis "from new"). But we can’t make enough of it to meet our needs and so it is considered an essential nutrient—meaning we must get it from our diets.
What does choline do for us?
Choline is required to make a lot of biologically important molecules, including phosphatidylcholine and the neurotransmitter acetylcholine. It’s critical to brain and nervous system function and plays a very important role in early brain development, both in the womb and in early life.
In fact, new research on the role of choline in fetal brain development has prompted the American Medical Association to push for a higher level of choline in prenatal vitamins. Up until recently, many prenatal formulations didn’t even include choline or included it only in very small amounts.
The AMA would like to see 450 mg of choline in prenatal formulations. One challenge is that choline is a sort of bulky nutrient and including higher amounts in a prenatal would make the tablets a lot bigger. It might be more feasible to recommend that pregnant women take a choline supplement in addition to their prenatal. For now, it’s up to women and their doctors to make sure that this need is being met.
Choline has a lot of other important functions in the body, including protecting the liver. A deficiency of this nutrient can lead to a buildup of fat in the liver, which can eventually lead to liver damage or even cancer.
See also: What is non-alcoholic fatty liver disease?
Where do we get choline?
The richest dietary sources of choline are eggs, organ meats (like liver), fish and shellfish, beef, pork, and chicken. Of the plant-based sources, Brussels sprouts, broccoli, and other cruciferous vegetables are your best bets.
How much choline is enough?
Good question! Choline does not have a recommended daily allowance (RDA) because the panel of experts that establishes those recommendations feels that there is not enough data to determine what amount is sufficient. When there’s not enough information to set an RDA, the National Academy of Medicine punts by setting an Adequate Intake (AI) instead. This is based on the amount that healthy people seem to be eating—with the assumption that if they’re generally healthy, they must be getting enough.
The AI for choline is...
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