TOM HARTLEY, REPORTER: My inbox has been flooded with stories of people being poisoned by over-the-counter supplements containing vitamin B6. It’s something we’ve been looking into for months. 

My quality of life has been damaged… Poor balance, brain fog, constant pain…Became so sick I thought I was going to die…

It just goes on like this – there are dozens of them.

And something that keeps popping up are claims that food and drinks are part of the problem with questions like why has B6 been added to so many products? 

DR TERRI LYNNE SOUTH, DIETITIAN:  Happy shopping?

TOM HARTLEY:  It was very interesting. 

TERRI LYNNE SOUTH: What did you find? 

TOM HARTLEY:  Well, I was surprised to see it so many everyday things I wouldn’t have expected to see it in.

TERRI LYNNE SOUTH: But the biggest one of course is the energy drinks – it’s absolutely huge. 

TOM HARTLEY:  Dr Terri Lynne South is a GP and dietitian. She says the synthetic vitamin B6 has been added to countless Australian food products. These are just a few I found in a quick shop. 

TERRI LYNNE SOUTH: Most people who eat a nutritious healthy diet get all of the vitamin B6 that they need, so they don’t actually need supplements. They certainly don’t need energy drinks.

TOM HARTLEY:  Why are they adding B6 to all this stuff? 

TERRI LYNNE SOUTH:  I feel as though, I think it comes from that era of the B6 vitamins, stress formula, give you energy, all of those sorts of things. I think it is a smart marketing, but it’s not really something we’ve seen deficiencies in in the community. 

TOM HARTLEY:  While B6 is considered an essential vitamin – most people can get what they need from meats and veggies – and the recommended daily intake is less than 2 milligrams for most adults. 

Our investigations have found debilitating health problems can occur when manufactured B6 is consumed even in small amounts and often in vitamin supplements. 

TERRI LYNNE SOUTH:  Particularly if you have a cumulative intake, daily use, weekly use, and it has become a problem.

There’s really only one reason to have a supplement for B6 and that’s if there is proven deficiency or risk of deficiency. So yeah, I think people are inadvertently overdosing and now we’re starting to see the consequences.

KERI MCINERNY:  It’s absolutely changed my life. All because I thought I was taking something that was going to make me healthy, and it didn’t. 

TOM HARTLEY:  In 2020, musician Keri McInerny realised she had blood toxicity. For years, she’d been consuming daily weight loss supplements and shakes – not realising they all contained synthetic B6.

KERI MCINERNY:  I started losing weight, but I also started losing muscle really quickly. And then it was sort of like into that six-month period or even less really that I started getting claudication, which is kind of like muscle cramping in my calves. And my symptoms just kept getting worse and worse.

I just became too sick, and I wasn’t getting the help that I needed because I went to multiple doctors, no one was listening. 

TOM HARTLEY:  She found support groups online, which guided her recovery and has since become an advocate for other B6 victims. 

KERI MCINERNY:  I’m seeing some of these women that are suicidal because of this chronic pain. It is that bad. These are major debilitating symptoms that destroy people’s lives.

TOM HARTLEY: Monique’s blood became toxic after consuming protein shakes and multivitamins not realising the combined B6 levels were extreme. 

MONIQUE:  The worst state that I was in was bedbound for about six months. The vestibular migraine started and I lost my balance completely. I’ve lost my independence. I can’t work. It’s a constant kind of push pull of working out what my capabilities are now within my limitations, basically. 

TOM HARTLEY:  So you’ve been really strict on your food intake since then?

MONIQUE:  Yeah, definitely. Everything that I look at, I’m always, that’s the first thing that I look for, B6 straight away.

ASSOC. PROF. ALEXANDRA JONES, THE GEORGE INSTITUTE FOR GLOBAL HEALTH:  On the one hand, I was sort of surprised to see how many products have B6, but I also know that this kind of voluntary fortification of products with vitamins and minerals is a key marketing tool that’s used by the food industry.

TOM HARTLEY:  Dr Alexandra Jones is an expert on Australian food policy. 

ALEXANDRA JONES:  So supplements are regulated by the TGA (Therapeutic Goods Administration), food is regulated by FSANZ – Food Standards Australia, New Zealand. Their job is to set the standards for how food is made, marketed and sold in Australia. 

The primary goal of their role is to protect public health. So, we have these two regulatory bodies. They do overlap, but they do regulate different substances. 

TOM HARTLEY:  Last month, the TGA released a report on B6 focused on the complementary medicines sector. 

It said the benefits were negligible; labelling is inconsistent and confusing and recommended products with more than 50 milligrams be moved behind pharmacy counters.

It has also called on Australia’s food standards agency to reconsider the amount of B6 allowed in energy drinks. 

ALEXANDRA JONES: There’s no good reason why energy drinks need to have six times the recommended daily intake of B6 in them.

TOM HARTLEY:  Dr South points out, even though all these foods are compliant, there are discrepancies between the TGA and Food Standards’ regulations – including labelling specific to B6. 

TERRI LYNNE SOUTH: What’s interesting is if you take a multivitamin and mineral and it’s got more than 10 milligrams of B6, it has to come with a warning label. These energy drinks are not coming with a warning label.

I do think we need better regulations in these higher food products. 

ALEXANDRA JONES:  Our consumption of them is growing, so if new health risks are emerging, it would be reasonable to ask for FSANZ to review that standard.

TOM HARTLEY:  The energy drinks sector didn’t answer our questions, instead pointing us towards the complementary medicines sector saying, “some popular multivitamin supplements contain about 25 milligrams of B6 – at least 5 times the average B6 in energy drinks…” 

Brands including Kelloggs, Berocca, and Nestle told 7.30 that they are compliant with current guidelines with their products containing much less than 50 milligrams of B6 which is the current upper limit.

Food Standards Australia said it would consider reviewing the current permissions “if evidence emerges that consumers are regularly exceeding safe intake levels …”

The people affected by B6 just want someone to take accountability.

MONIQUE:  I don’t think it should be in anything. There does definitely need to be massive warnings on products that have it in it.

There needs to be hoops for people to jump through to get it.