Best Vitamin B12 Supplements UK
Vitamins are a crucial form of micronutrient. Our bodies need a broad range of micronutrients from dietary and other sources to maintain their health. Pretty much every system in the body will need some combination of vitamins and minerals in order to function.
A balanced, varied diet should give you plenty of micronutrients, plenty of vitamins. If you take in plenty of different types of fruits, vegetables, and healthy protein sources, you should get a broad coverage.
However, there are often times when our diets don’t quite cut it. For this reason, it’s always a good idea to consider supplementation. Though a good multi-vitamin may be in order, we can get a little bit more specific. For instance, if you are vitamin B12 deficient, you may need a specialised vitamin B12 supplement. Today, we are going to shortlist the best vitamin B12 supplements available to buy in the UK.
Quick Verdict: Vitamin B12
Our Top Vitamin B12 Supplements
You might think that all vitamin B12 supplements are the same. They’re not. So much so that we thought it was worth compiling a shortlist of the best vitamin B12 supplements on the market. So, let’s take a look:
Contents
WeightWorld Vitamin B12
WeightWorld, who make our first offering, are a very impressive small business. They are a British, family grown firm, with nearly two decades of experience in making some of the best health and wellness supplements on the market. They have a reputation for using high quality ingredients, expertly combined, in fully GMP certified products.
WeightWorlds’ vitamin B12 supplements are made from the most bioavailable and active ingredient going: methylcobalamin, a rich and very usable form of vitamin B12.
Each tablet gives you 1000mcg of methylcobalamin, so 1000mcg of vitamin B12. As we have seen, this is far above the recommended daily intake – 40,000% of it, in fact! It’s completely overkill, but that’s rarely too much of an issue with a supplement. Your body will take what it needs and flush the rest out when you go to the bathroom.
A single bottle of WeightWorlds’ vitamin B12 tablets will last you for more than a year – you get 400, with one tablet recommended each day.
Their formula is also completely vegan and vegetarian friendly, as are most such supplements. This makes sense – as we have seen, vegans and vegetarians, and anyone else following at least a predominantly meat-based diet, can struggle to take in enough vitamin B12 through diet alone. They will form a core user base for anyone manufacturing and selling vitamin B12 supplements.
WeightWorlds’ vitamin B12 tablets are also incredibly high quality – as evidenced by their use of the highly bioavailable methylcobalamin – and are all completely GMO free, gluten free, and allergen free. And if you’re unsatisfied with the standard – which I doubt you will be – you can get your money back with their money back guarantee.
Nutravita Vitamin B12
Next up, we come to a product by Nutravita, a particular favourite company of mine. They are a well-recognised, well-trusted supplement manufacturer, GMP and BRC certified, thus underpinned by some of the highest manufacturing standards in the world. They also have a crack team of research scientists, chemists, and pharmacologists working in their labs, sourcing the finest ingredients and combining them into some of the best products going.
Their vitamin B12 supplement stays true to form. It’s a highly effective, potent formula that should give you everything you want. It also uses methylcobalamin, which we will see cropping up time and again in this list due to its bioavailability – basically, your body absorbs it very readily, very efficiently.
It’s fully, rigorously third party tested in one of Europe’s top labs, so you know that what you are getting is unbiased in its promises, pure, and free from anything nasty.
You get a 450-day supply of vitamin B12 tablets with each bottle, so far more than a year out of every purchase. Everything is vegetarian and vegan friendly, meaning that those who need it the most have full access.
Jolly Jelly Vitamin B12 Tapioca Gummies
But what if you don’t want to take tablets every day. What if, instead of downing all sorts of pills, you could eat a chewy sweet each morning? It’s certainly an attractive prospect, which is why I’m such a fan of gummies – they are basically chewy sweets loaded with vitamins and minerals.
Jolly Jelly’s vitamin B12 tapioca gummies are an example of gummies at their best.
Each little sweetie gives you an excessive 120,000% of your vitamin B12 daily needs, with 3000mcg per serving. Again, this excess will be a characteristic of every item on this list – again, as with WeightWorld’s supplements, this is fine and actually kind of positive. And, although it is a lot, vitamin B12 isn’t always very efficiently absorbed by your body. The theory therefore runs that in firing enough bullets, something has to hit. You may end up wasting some of these micrograms of vitamin B12, but you’ll at least get an optimum amount before peeing out the rest!
That vitamin B12 all comes as methylcobalamin, of course, so you know you’re getting the best. Each gummy is completely vegan and vegetarian friendly (which isn’t always guaranteed, as many use beef or pork gelatine), as well as being dairy, nut, GMO, and gluten free. A single bottle will give you sixty gummies, which will be enough for two months.
Zipvit Vitamin B12 Tablets
A lot of the items on this list will look very similar. This is OK. In fact, it’s fairly standard for this kind of supplement. As each supplement is giving you pure vitamin B12 and no other active ingredients, they will be pretty much the same. The trick is getting the good quality ones, which I’ve done here. As long as the standard is good and the product’s ingredients check out, you’re onto a winner whichever way you turn.
Zipvit’s vitamin B12 tablets fit the bill nicely. It gives you 1100mcg of methylcobalamin (44,000% of your recommended daily intake), all high quality and bioavailable. As with WeightWorld’s and Nutravita’s offerings, it therefore doses you with more than enough highly usable vitamin B12 to ensure you get an optimal uptake.
Everything is also free from what you want it to be free from: it is vegan and vegetarian friendly, being fully dairy free, as well as being free from lactose, gluten, wheat, and GMO products.
They don’t really stand out from the crowd that well, but they shouldn’t. WeightWorld’s and Nutravita’s offerings don’t. However, it’s a good crowd to be a part of – a crowd full of similarly potent, similarly high-quality products all promising to give you the same thing. Choose any of them and you’ll be onto a winner.
BetterYou Boost Vitamin B12 Daily Oral Spray
Let’s find something that does stand apart, though. It doesn’t really stand out in its efficacy – it is on par with everything else here, which is a good thing. The delivery mechanism is a bit different, though.
This is because BetterYou Boost Vitamin B12 is a daily oral spray. You simply open your mouth, give the bottle a few quick pumps, and carry on with your day. It’s very clever, very practical, and actually really quite pleasant to take.
One pump of the spray gives you 300mcg of vitamin B12. The manufacturer recommends four pumps per day, all taken in one go. However, you needn’t. As we’ve seen, all of these products are excessive. This one is no different, but at least you have a better degree of control. Take 1200mcg if you want. Or don’t. Save your money and spin it out for longer, safe in the knowledge that you’re still taking in a lot of vitamin B12.
This flexibility is great.
As well as high-quality methylcobalamin, each dose comes with a dash of green tea and chromium for an extra little energy kick. Everything is suitable for vegetarians and vegans, appropriately, and everything is completely natural, with all ingredients being food-sourced and all preservatives being natural. This includes the lovely apricot flavouring, making it a genuinely delightful product.
Vitality Bioresearch Vitamin B12
Let’s get a bit clever with our penultimate product. At its heart, it is no different from any of the other pills we’ve seen on this list. You get 1000mcg of vitamin B12 per serving, largely from methylcobalamin, with Vitality Bioresearch’s vitamin B12. This is all good and all much of a much. I would recommend it based on this alone.
However, there is more to it, as you would expect from a company with a name like Vitality Bioresearch. Their formula has been put together by a pair of expert physicians with a combined professional experience of over forty years. And in that time, they’ve figured out what else is needed in this kind of supplement.
In addition to the methylcobalamin, you also get a good dose of adenosylcobalamin. This is another highly active form of vitamin B12 that promises to reach the body’s tissues far more ably. In fact, they claim that up to triple the amount of B12 can be retained from their product than with lesser products.
Do note that none of the other products on this list count as ‘lesser’. In this context, lesser means those using synthetic forms of vitamin B12 like cyanocobalamin. I’ve steered clear of anything like this.
You also get around 30% extra absorption from their nanoboost encapsulation. Basically, their capsules are very clever and further increase the vitamin B12’s bioavailability, which is nice.
It’s also all completely vegan and vegetarian friendly, all natural, and free from any nasties. I’m not convinced that a vitamin supplement needs to be this well-engineered, but it’s still quite cool. They’ve made a good product, here.
Solgar Vitamin B12 Sublingual Chewable Nuggets
I want to end with another set of gummies, or ‘sublingual chewable nuggets’, in this case. We’re looking at Solgar’s vitamin B12 sublingual chewable nuggets, in fact, which is really quite nice for us – they are fantastic, if a little pompous.
I’m being unfair. They aren’t quite gummies (though if you squint, they look very much like gummies to me). Rather, they are designed to be placed under the tongue to melt, whilst also being designed to be chewable… you’ll figure out a good way to consume them, I’m sure.
I also have something to admit to, aside from being a little unfair – I’ve only gone and included a vitamin B12 supplement that relies on cyanocobalamin…
Sorry, I know I said that cyanocobalamin is sub-par, and it kind of is. However, this is still a really good product. You get 1000mcg, which, as we have seen, is more than enough vitamin B12 to see you through, even if it isn’t quite such a bioavailable form. It’s also a clever delivery mechanism, allowing you to melt it straight under your tongue before carrying on with your day.
It maybe isn’t the most potent option on this list, but it will work very well and may be a perfect supplement for a lot of people.
Another Option
Try a good quality nootropic that includes Vitamin B12
You can go with solo vitamin B12 supplements, of course. The supplements in the above list all give you plenty of vitamin B12 and, largely, nothing more. This will patch up the deficits in your diet, keeping you happy and healthy.
However, it seems a bit of a wasted opportunity. There are plenty of supplements out there with more than enough vitamin B12 in them that will also give you added benefits.
Plenty of nootropics contain high levels of vitamin B12. So called ‘smart drugs’, nootropics are designed to aid cognitive and mental health, improving your mood, focus, energy levels, and pretty much every other part of your brain’s functioning.
I personally like NooCube. I use it myself fairly consistently, especially during periods of high stress or hard work (which is often, realistically). It includes vitamin B12 for its ability to help prevent damage to neurotransmitters, improve mood, and boost energy levels, all of which obviously play well into the idea of improving brain health and mental wellbeing.
It’s also pretty much the gold standard in nootropics. Just as this list is topped by a few special somethings, any list reviewing the top nootropics will contain it – I should know, as I’ve written several of them, and included NooCube amongst the top every time.
By all means, go with a solo vitamin B12 supplement. If you’re deficient in it and don’t struggle with anything else, it’s all you need. However, if you need an extra something, bear in mind that there are more options. If you could benefit from a bit of a cognitive boost and improved mental wellbeing (and who couldn’t, after all?), I would highly recommend including NooCube in your supplement regime.
Verdict
As above, many of the items on this list are similar. They give you the same thing in broadly similar doses, mostly to a similarly high standard. Therefore, don’t worry overmuch about the ‘best’ vitamin B12 supplement on this list. They are all good in very similar ways. They will all plug that deficiency if you need it.
However, there are some honourable mentions. If you want a gummy, Jolly Jelly is probably the way to go. It’s high quality whilst also being tasty and highly accessible. If you want something super convenient, or if you’re pill-averse, BetterYou Boost is a good idea. Simply spray and go. Or if you want pills, we’ve seen that WeightWorld and Nutravita have you covered.
Or, if you want a bit more from your supplements, give NooCube a go. That’s generally the direction I go.
What Is Vitamin B12?
Vitamin B12, or cobalamin, is, obviously, a vitamin. It plays a key role in several areas of your body’s functioning, including the formation of red blood cells, cell metabolism, nerve function, and DNA production.
We all need to take in regular supplies of vitamin B12. This is often fairly easy, as there are plenty of dietary sources of it. These include animal products such as meat, fish, poultry, and dairy, though some other foods, such as breakfast cereal, can be fortified with it.
Symptoms of vitamin B12 deficiency (a lack of adequate amounts of vitamin B12 in your diet) can result in symptoms including anaemia, fatigue and muscular weakness, nerve damage, intestinal damage, and mood swings.
Why Take Vitamin B12?
As it is so widely available from dietary sources, vitamin B12 deficiency isn’t very common. However, there are some groups at risk of it. These include those following a plant-based diet, like vegans and some vegetarians.
The latter will experience it if they don’t tend to include much dairy in their diet.
Older people may also be likely to suffer from it. So too will those with digestive tract conditions that affect nutrient absorption – though in these cases, the deficiency won’t be limited to vitamin B12.
In cases of severe deficiency, your healthcare provider may prescribe vitamin B12 injections or nasal spray. However, simple supplementation will generally be enough to get your health back on track.
It’s often recommended for pregnant and breastfeeding women to take vitamin B12 supplements. This can help to support healthy growth and development in the infant.
Healthy adults should aim to take in around 2.4 micrograms of vitamin B12 daily. A good supplement, like those in our list below, will cover this amount and more.
