How much vitamin B6 do you need per day?

The RDA for vitamin B6 is 1.3 mg a day for both men and women aged 19 to 50.

These are the reference amounts used on US food labels and in dietary guidance, not personal targets. What you need shifts with age, pregnancy, medication and health conditions. The % Daily Value shown on every food page here is calculated against the FDA Daily Value for vitamin B6, which is 1.7 mg a day.

What this means for you

One and a third milligrams a day, and it is one of the easier targets on this site. Chicken, fish, potatoes, chickpeas, bananas and pistachios all carry it, and a single chicken breast is most of a day.

Deficiency on its own is uncommon and usually comes with other B vitamin shortages, most often in people with reduced kidney function or on certain antiepileptic drugs.

The reason to read further is the top end, because vitamin B6 breaks the rule people apply to water-soluble vitamins.

Not for everyone. Taking 1 to 6 grams of oral pyridoxine a day for a year or more causes severe and progressive nerve damage in the arms and legs. The upper limit is 100 mg a day, and the excess does not simply leave in urine the way people assume.

That matters because B6 is sold in 50 and 100 mg tablets for premenstrual symptoms, morning sickness and carpal tunnel, which is 40 to 75 times the daily requirement. On the claim that B6 protects thinking, a systematic review of 14 randomised trials found insufficient evidence of any effect.

One trial did hand 267 adults exactly 100 mg a day for a month. Among the 58 who already had mild or worse depression symptoms the scores came down, while anxiety and stress did not move. That was a subgroup pulled out after the randomisation, in a sample that was mostly women, at a dose far above anything food delivers. The authors asked for a proper trial in patients and nobody has run one.

Two things that pull the number down

The 1.3 mg assumes nothing is working against you. Levodopa for Parkinson's disease uses B6 up, and in one review 60 of 145 patients had an abnormal level, 52 of them low rather than high. Combined oral contraceptives lower it as well, seen in a crossover trial of eight women whose food was supplying 1.2 to 1.4 mg a day, which is roughly the requirement itself.

Neither finding comes with a replacement number, because nobody has worked one out. Both are a reason to raise it with a doctor rather than to pick a dose off a shelf.

Which 1.3 mg, and whose

The label figure and the requirement are two different numbers, and both appear on this page for good reasons. The Daily Value printed on packaging is 1.7 mg, and it is one of four legal figures. Infants under a year have 0.3 mg. Children aged 1 to 3 have 0.5 mg. Everyone aged 4 and over has 1.7 mg. Pregnancy and breastfeeding have 2.0 mg. So a percentage on a bottle is measured against the adult number whoever is holding it, including a four-year-old.

For food, the banana has the reputation and the potato does the work. One banana gives 0.3 mg, which is 18 per cent of the label figure. One medium baked potato gives 0.9 mg, which is 53 per cent, and a large one 1.2 mg. A medium roast chicken breast also comes to 0.9 mg. If you want more B6 without thinking about it, dinner is a better lever than fruit.

Who is actually below the requirement

This is one of the few nutrients where the answer depends heavily on who you are. The share of people below the requirement rises steadily with age, and for women it rises much further. Among girls aged 4 to 8 it is 5.1 per cent. At 14 to 18 it is 38.1 per cent. At 51 to 70 it is 52.4 per cent, and past 70 it is 52.8 per cent. Men sit lower at every age band, from 4.1 per cent in childhood to 36.8 per cent past 70. Part of that is the requirement itself going up after 50, and part of it is intake going down.

Median intake across all adults is 1.51 mg a day, 1.80 for men and 1.32 for women. So the typical woman is sitting almost exactly on the requirement, which is why small changes in her diet move her across the line and small changes in his do not.

Unsettled. The 100 mg upper limit above is the American one, and Europe has moved off it. EFSA cut its own limit to 12 mg a day in 2023, for adults including pregnancy and breastfeeding, which is eight times lower. The Netherlands capped supplements at 21 mg a day back in 2018. The underlying observations are shared: harm recorded above 50 mg a day over months to years, clear nerve toxicity from 500 mg. The argument is about how much room to leave below that. Nothing here changes what to eat. It changes what a 50 mg tablet means, and the safer reading is the lower number.

Written from the evidence cards and the data on this page, then checked back against the sources. Bioma Learn has no human medical reviewer at this time and we say so rather than invent one. Information, not medical advice. How we verify.

Foods highest in vitamin B6 on this site

• Acai berry drink, fortified fortified — 2.93 mg per 8 fl oz (172% DV)
• Chicken, broiler or fryers, breast, skinless, cooked — 1.6 mg per 1.0 piece (94% DV)
• Pistachio nuts, dry roasted — 1.38 mg per 1 cup (81% DV)
• Chicken, meatless fortified — 1.18 mg per 1 cup (69% DV)
• Sesame seeds, whole, dried — 1.14 mg per 1 cup (67% DV)

All vitamin B6 sources ranked →

Full guide: Vitamin B6: a water-soluble vitamin that can still damage nerves permanently