The 5 Best Supplements for Canker Sores

A lot of the things you read and hear on the net about canker sores relates to simply treating the sores should they develop. And understandably so, after all, there’s not very much else you care about when that volcanic pain hits in your mouth.

But as the brilliant Chinese thinker Sun Tzu once said, the best way to win a war is to prevent one from happening to begin with.

In our case, granted that means that it’s better to prevent the canker sores from erupting to start with than to treat them once they’ve unleashed their fury upon you.

Keeping that in mind, I present to you the 5 best supplements to help protect against canker sores.

1. Vitamin B12

Vitamin B12 is one of 8 B vitamins and the most complicated of them all, considering it contains the biochemically unique element, cobalt. In fact, it is sometimes known as cobalamin. Mostly renowned for its energy-enhancing properties, Vitamin B12 is especially vital for the brain and nervous system, and also aids in the creation of blood.

Individuals with vitamin B12 deficiencies experience several different issues, including fatigue and depression at even slightly lower than normal levels, and even mania and psychosis at severe levels. It’s also associated with a type of anemia.

You can obtain B12 by natural means by consuming animal proteins, especially beef, shellfish, and liver, in fairly unnatural ways in fortified food products like flour, also in totally ungodly ways like energy drinks. There aren’t any real negative effects to taking too much vitamin B12, though the correction of megaloblastic anemia with vitamin B12 may lead to fatal hypokalemia and gout in sensitive individuals.

So what does all this have to do with canker sores?

Based upon results printed in Spring 2009 from a research done at the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Israel, B12 revealed great promise in preventing canker sores in RAS sufferers. In the case study, 58 randomly determined RAS sufferers received either 1000 mcg of B12 per night or a placebo and tracked spanning a 6 month period. The results were that 74% of the treated group experienced a full remission of canker sores towards the end of the study. The average length of canker sores and the pain levels dropped during the first four months, but supposedly went away completely during the 5th and 6th month. Those on the placebo saw 32% remission by the conclusion.

2. Folic Acid

Folic Acid could be the Lon Cheney in the vitamin world as it is the vitamin with a thousand faces, including vitamin B9,vitamin Bc or folacin and folate (the naturally sourced form), not to mention pteroyl-L-glutamic acid, pteroyl-L-glutamate, and pteroylmonoglutamic acid.

In the purposes of simplicity, we’ll stick to Folic Acid.

Folic Acid is very a lot like Vitamin B12 because they work together to metabolize many functions within the body, including synthesizing and restoring DNA, and also encourage rapid cell growth. It’s especially important in expecting mothers and children because it keeps their fast-growing tissues healthy and developing properly. Deficiencies in Folic Acid is uncommon in Western diets as many breads and foods are fortified with it, but produces a wealth of problems, such as nerve damage and numbness, weakness, swollen tongue, lapse of memory, peptic ulcers, and also heart palpitations.

You can obtain Folic Acid naturally in leafy vegetables and legumes, egg yolks, sunflower seeds and liver, as well as fortified grains and breads. Your body may also store anywhere up to 20,000 mcg inside your body, so deficiencies are relatively uncommon. The preferred daily consumption is 1000 mcg for an adult.

Concerning exactly what it does for canker sores… There doesn’t seem to be a slam-bang study like the one for B12, it looks like mostly Folic Acid is suggested for canker sores because deficiencies can yield both peptic and mouth ulcers. Now, while it’s been stated that deficiencies are rare, everybody’s body functions in different ways. So maybe some people are operating a little low and will want to implement greater than the proposed daily amount to stop getting them. That, and the way Folic Acid speeds the process of cell division may help ulcers heal more quickly than usual.

Then it may be worth it to give it a shot. Just remember the effects can take a while.

3. Lysine

Lysine is actually an amino acid, specifically, it is an essential amino acid, meaning that we can’t create it ourselves and have to get it from other sources. It’s an important foundation for all of the protein in the body, so it’s not something you want to do without. It also helps one’s body to absorb calcium, repair muscles, and helps with the body’s manufacture of enzymes and antibodies. Luckily, it can be found in an assortment of sources like fish, chicken, beef, peas, legumes, and cheeses.

The recommended smallest quantity for a healthy adult is 12 milligrams.

Most of the hype around Lysine’s effect on canker sores might go back to the old thorn in our sides, herpes. Lysine has been shown to be effective at healing viruses, therefore it would stand to reason that it may be good to consume for cold sores and the herpes simplex virus. But since RAS has nothing to do with herpes, it might be a fools errand to consider it for canker sores.

Or is it?

Lysine insufficiencies are related to immunodeficiency, so taking lysine might help boost and regulate the immune system. And RAS is an immune system condition, thus it could have a positive effect in that regard. Also, lysine being a foundation of protein and a highly suggested health supplement for after surgeries due to the power to help the body repair, it might help to heal canker sores.

4. Iron

Iron is rather literally just about the most abundant elements in the universe. The center of the planet is a solid core of the stuff. It burns in every star in every single galaxy, it’s under our feet, and it’s within our bodies. In actual fact, we can’t live without it. Hippy-dippy types might say it’s what connects us all.

Iron is crucial to getting oxygen to our cells throughout the blood. A protein called hemoglobin in red blood cells is the taxi cab that gets the oxygen from our lungs to the cells, and 2/3 of the body’s iron is found in the hemoglobin, with most of the remaining within a protein named myoglobin, which moves oxygen towards the muscles. There are 2 kinds of dietary iron, heme, and non-heme. Principally, heme iron derives from hemoglobin in red blood cells, which hails from eating animals. Non-heme arises from plant sources. Each are absorbed into our bodies roughly the same.

Iron is mainly employed to treat anemia, a disorder where the body doesn’t create enough red blood cells and hemoglobin to efficiently transfer oxygen throughout the body.

Typical suggested male ingestion for iron is about 8 mg/day, whereas for women it’s 18 mg/day on account of loss of blood during menstruation. For expectant women, 27mg/day is advisable. The downside to iron supplementation is the fact that iron toxicity may be possible and can occur if you’re not cautious. Some individuals, mostly from European lineage, have what’s referred to as hemochromotosis, where the body absorbs iron exceptionally proficiently, so much in fact that it stores the iron in the body’s organs, which can lead to problems eventually. About 1 in 250 people have this disorder, that may be increased with iron supplementation.

So what’s the jib with canker sores?

Well once again, this is among those deficiencies things. Along with anemia, which creates a general malaise and tiredness, iron insufficiencies can bring about canker sores. There are actually a number of scientific studies which have tested iron-deficient RAS sufferers and after a round of iron supplementation as well as B12, the sores went away. Of course, it’s good to discover the numbers yourself and track the results.

5. Astaxanthin

This last one is a little of a wild card.

Astaxanthin is a carotenoid, a lipid-soluble pigment present in algae, yeast, salmon, trout, krill, crayfish, as well as other crustaceans. Astaxanthin is the thing that gives salmon its red color. It’s so red, in truth, that it has actually been approved in the form of food additive for color.

What makes astaxanthin useful to us is it’s also essentially the most highly effective antioxidants in the world. It works overtime in helping your body heal and does it so well, actually, it is shown to prevent sunburn.

This was the main reason I started taking it in the summertime. But I discovered there were other perks that I wasn’t expecting. In sufficient doses, astaxanthin has anti-inflammatory properties.

And if there’s something that helps to eliminate a canker sore, it’s getting rid of the inflammation.

I found as I was on astaxanthin the canker sores I did get were smaller, less painful, and disappeared faster than standard sores. It also seemed like they, for a lack of a better way of putting it, were battling to get going. A small spot would arise that may normally blow up into a canker sore in a day or two, but in this case, it seemed to just hover there, not continuing or getting worse and after that disappearing.

Alternately, I saw that the longer I took it, the less effective it got. Almost as if your body gets accustomed to the supplementation and regulates itself normal again. It may seem like the best way to take astaxanthin could well be in cycles – a week or two on and then a week or two off.

Give any of these supplements a try and see if they make a difference to you!