← The FormularyLong gamePantothenic acid
Also known as Vitamin B5Named for being everywhere.
Pantothenic acid is the least eventful entry in any B-complex, and that is the honest summary. It is in virtually all food, deficiency in free-living people is effectively unheard of, and the dramatic claims made for high-dose B5 — chiefly for acne, at grams per day — rest on thin evidence and come with gastrointestinal consequences. It is in RESET and SHIFT at about a third of a day's requirement because a B-complex that omitted it would be an incomplete B-complex. That is the whole story.
A water-soluble B vitamin whose name comes from the Greek for 'from everywhere' — because it is in nearly every food there is.
Coenzyme A is the handle the body puts on a two-carbon fragment so enzymes can pass it around — into the citric acid cycle for energy, or out into fatty acid and cholesterol synthesis. It is involved in a very large share of metabolism, which explains both why the vitamin is essential and why a shortfall is almost never the problem.
Becomes coenzyme A, the molecule that carries carbon fragments through fat, carbohydrate and protein metabolism.
Nobody specifically. It is present for completeness.
Daily inside the complex. Nothing about timing or pairing matters.
Nothing, which is what a nutrient at a third of a day's requirement should produce in someone who was not short of it.
Grade A as an essential nutrient with an adequate intake of 5 mg/day and no tolerable upper limit set. Human deficiency has largely been observed only in experimental depletion studies. High-dose use for acne is not well supported.
Read the labelNo established upper limit; very large doses can loosen the bowel. Not a treatment for acne, however often high-dose B5 is sold that way.
Evidence grades describe how well an ingredient is studied — A well-supported, C emerging — not a promise of results. Educational, not medical advice. Doses are typical ranges; follow the label on the product.