Vitamin B2 is also known as riboflavin. It is an important nutrient for your body, which helps with energy production, red blood cell production and the maintenance of your nervous system.
Vitamin B2 is found in a variety of foods, including dairy products, green leafy vegetables, fish and meat.
What is it?
Riboflavin is one of eight B vitamins that are essential for good health. Vitamin B2 helps to release energy from carbohydrates, fats, and protein during digestion and metabolism. It’s also needed for healthy skin and nerves. Other benefits include:
Boosting immunity
Reducing the risk of cancer (especially colon cancer)
Preventing anemia (anaemia)
Lowering high blood pressure
Building strong bones, muscles and skin
Keeping your heart and blood vessels healthy
Producing antibodies that help fight infection
Riboflavin may help to keep skin, hair and nails healthy. The body also needs riboflavin to make energy from food.
Riboflavin helps your body use oxygen to release energy from the food you eat. It also helps maintain healthy red blood cells that carry oxygen around your body. Without enough riboflavin, your red blood cells could become misshapen or damaged, which can lead to anemia — a condition in which there aren’t enough normal red blood cells in the body.
Riboflavin helps keep eyes healthy by supporting the health of tissues at the back of the eye (retina). A lack of this vitamin can cause night blindness and dryness of the eyes.
Riboflavin also helps with normal growth and development during pregnancy and breastfeeding, as well as childhood development through adolescence into adulthood.
The recommended intake of riboflavin for adults is 1.3 milligrams daily for men and 1.1 mg for women.
