What Is Choline? An Essential Nutrient With Many Benefits
Choline was only acknowledged as a required nutrient by the Institute of Medicine in 1998. Although your body makes some choline naturally, you need to get it from your diet to avoid a deficiency.
Many people are not meeting the recommended intake for this nutrient.
This article provides everything you need to know about choline, including what it is and why you need it.
What is choline?
Choline is an essential nutrient. This means it's required for normal bodily function and human health. Though your liver can make small amounts, you must obtain the majority through your diet.
Choline is an organic, water-soluble compound. It is neither a vitamin nor a mineral.
However, it is often grouped with the vitamin B complex due to its similarities. In fact, this nutrient affects a number of vital bodily functions.
It impacts liver function, healthy brain development, muscle movement, your nervous system and metabolism.
Therefore, adequate amounts are needed for optimal health.
Serves many functions in your body
Choline plays an important part in many processes in your body, including:
Cell structure: It is needed to make fats that support the structural integrity of cell membranes.
Cell messaging: It is involved in the production of compounds that act as cell messengers.
Fat transport and metabolism: It is essential for making a substance required for removing cholesterol from your liver. Inadequate choline may result in fat and cholesterol buildup in your liver.
DNA synthesis: Choline and other vitamins, such as B12 and folate, help with a process that's important for DNA synthesis.
A healthy nervous system: This nutrient is required to make acetylcholine, an important neurotransmitter. It's involved in memory, muscle movement, regulating heartbeat and other basic functions.
How much do you need?
Due to a lack of available evidence, a Reference Daily Allowance (RDA) for choline has not been determined.
However, the Institute of Medicine has set a value for adequate intake (AI).
This value is intended to be sufficient for most healthy people, helping them avoid negative consequences of deficiency, such as liver damage.
Nevertheless, requirements differ according to age, gender, and genetic makeup.
In addition, determining choline intake is difficult because its presence in various foods is relatively unknown.
Here are the recommended AI values of choline for different age groups:
0–6 months: 125 mg per day
7–12 months: 150 mg per day
1–3 years: 200 mg per day
4–8 years: 250 mg per day
9–13 years: 375 mg per day
14–18 years: 400 mg per day for females and 550 mg per day for males
Adult females: 425 mg per day
Adult males: 550 mg per day
People breastfeeding: 550 mg per day
Pregnant people: 430 mg per day
Deficiency is unhealthy but rare
Choline deficiency can cause harm, especially for your liver.
One small, older study in 57 adults found that 77% of men, 80% of postmenopausal women and 44% of premenopausal women developed fatty liver and/or muscle damage after going on a choline-deficient diet.
Another older study noted that when postmenopausal women consumed a diet deficient in choline, 73% developed liver or muscle dysfunction.
However, these symptoms disappeared once they began getting enough choline.
Choline is especially important during pregnancy, as a low intake may raise the risk of neural tube defects in unborn babies.
Another older study determined that a higher dietary intake around the time of conception was associated with a lower risk of neural tube defects.
In addition, low choline intake may raise your risk of other pregnancy complications. These include preeclampsia, premature birth and low birth weight.
Top dietary sources
Choline can be obtained from a variety of foods and supplements.
Food sources
Dietary sources are generally in the form of phosphatidylcholine from lecithin, a type of fat-like molecule found in lecithin.
The richest dietary sources of choline include:
Food Portion Amount of choline contained (mg)
Pan-fried beef liver 1 slice (3 ounces or 85 grams) 356
Hardboiled eggs 1 large egg 147
Lean braised beef top round 3 ounces or 85 grams 117
Roasted soybeans Half a cup 107
Roasted chicken breast 3 ounces or 85 grams 72
Cooked fresh cod 3 ounces or 85 grams 71
Baked red potatoes with skin 1 large potato 57
Canned kidney beans Half a cup 45
Additives and supplements
Soy lecithin is a widely used food additive that contains choline. Therefore, it is likely that extra choline is consumed through the diet via food additives.
Some additive and supplemental forms of chlorine include:
lecithin
phosphatidylcholine
choline chloride
CDP-choline
alpha-GPC
betaine
Some sources claim that choline in nutritional supplements may reduce body fat, but there is little to no evidence supporting these claims.
Impact on heart health
Elevated levels of homocysteine in your blood have been linked to an increased risk of heart disease and strokes, as well as lower blood pressure. However, evidence is mixed, and more studies are needed to confirm any positive link.
Choline helps convert the amino acid homocysteine to methionine. Therefore, a deficiency of choline can result in an accumulation of homocysteine in your blood.
Impact on your brain
Choline is required to produce acetylcholine, a neurotransmitter that plays an important role in regulating memory, mood and intelligence.
It's also needed for the process that synthesizes DNA, which is important for brain function and development.
Therefore, choline intake is associated with improvements in brain function and cognitive performance.
Observational studies link higher choline intake to better brain function and a lower risk of dementia and Alzheimer's disease.
However, further studies on this subject are needed to better understand whether choline supplementation would affect cognitive function.
Too much can be harmful
Consuming too much choline has been associated with unpleasant and potentially harmful side effects.
These include drops in blood pressure, sweating, fishy body odor, diarrhea, nausea and vomiting.
The daily upper limit for adults is 3,500 mg per day. This is the highest level of intake that is unlikely to cause harm.
It is very unlikely that someone could ingest this amount from food alone. It would be almost impossible to reach this level without taking supplements in large doses.
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