Your brain needs vitamins, but cannot make its own: Most of the vitamins in your blood (and brain) come from your diet. And, as we all know from reading the labels of the foods we buy in the supermarket, you need a certain minimum daily intake of vitamins for normal function of your brain and your body.

If you are eating a well-balanced diet, and especially if you add to it a good-quality multi-vitamin, you should not become vitamin deficient. The one exception is Vitamin B12, a water soluble which plays an important role in brain health.

In order for your body to use vitamin B12, no matter what the source,  you need to have a special substance produced by your stomach to promote the absorption of the vitamin.

As we age, sometimes our stomachs no longer produce this substance. Without it, whether you take vitamin B12 pills or eat food enriched with vitamin B12, the vitamin will pass right out of your system. If your stomach can’Äôt absorb vitamin B12, then you must take it by injection.

Deficiency in B12 causes problems in both thinking and motor skills and in addition to its effects upon your memory, it also prevents the normal formation of red blood cells, a condition known as pernicious anemia.

Fortunately, B12 deficiency will show up in a simple blood test, and treatment is also easy: an injection of B12 once a month.

Apart from a vitamin B12 deficiency problem, most vitamin deficiencies occur primarily when eating habits are abnormal. This is most common in heavy drinkers, who tend to fill up on alcohol, and don’t maintain a normal diet, and thus become vitamin deficient.

The calories in the alcohol are called “empty” calories because they lack proteins, vitamins, and other nutritional substances people need for overall health and wellness.

The resulting vitamin deficiency, which is usually a thiamine deficiency, is not always easy to detect.  Its symptoms–confusion, memory problems, and difficulties walking–may come on very gradually, and mimic old age. And because family members and friends are often not aware of how much someone is drinking, they may not even think of a vitamin deficiency as the explanation.

If caught in time, this condition is readily treatable by eliminating alcohol and adding supplemental thiamine (vitamin B1) and making sure the person maintains a proper diet.