Pantothenic Acid (Vitamin B5): ICMR-NIN Intake, Indian Food Sources and Supplement Claims

Pantothenic acid is vitamin B5, a water-soluble vitamin that the body turns into coenzyme A, the carrier molecule at the centre of fat metabolism. ICMR-NIN's Nutrient Requirements for Indians 2020 proposes an adequate intake of 5 mg a day for adults, with 7 mg during lactation. Almost every plant and animal food contains some, so a shortage caused by diet alone is hardly ever seen. This entry in the vitamins section of the handbook gives the Indian figures and looks at what the supplement trials found.

What does pantothenic acid do in the body?

It is a building block, not a worker in its own right. The joint FAO and WHO expert consultation on vitamin requirements describes pantothenic acid as a component of coenzyme A, a cofactor that carries acyl groups for many enzymatic processes, and of the acyl carrier protein inside the complex that builds fatty acids. In plain terms, the body cannot burn fat for energy, or make fatty acids of its own, without molecules that contain this vitamin.

That role explains why B5 is sold as an "energy" vitamin, and also why the claim misleads. Coenzyme A helps release the energy already present in food; the vitamin supplies none itself. The consultation notes that pantothenate is most especially involved in fatty acid metabolism. How the other seven B vitamins divide the work is set out in the list of the 13 vitamins, and its nearest neighbour is covered in the handbook entry on thiamine.

How much pantothenic acid do Indians need under ICMR-NIN's 2020 values?

ICMR-NIN's 2020 report proposes 5 mg a day for adults and for pregnant women, an extra 2 mg a day for lactating women to cover what passes into breast milk, and 4 and 5 mg a day for children and adolescents. These are adequate intakes, a weaker kind of figure than a recommended dietary allowance. The report says the adult value rests on the intakes of apparently healthy people, because nobody has measured a true requirement, and its main tables leave B5 out and refer the reader to the text.

The two bodies agree on adults because they reasoned the same way. The FAO and WHO consultation observed that usual adult intakes had been reported at 4 to 7 mg a day and concluded that around 5 mg is apparently adequate. It also states that the lack of sufficient population data is the reason an adequate intake is used. ICMR-NIN's table of tolerable upper limits carries no column for pantothenic acid, so India has set no ceiling either.

Which Indian foods supply pantothenic acid in a normal portion?

Pulses lead the Indian tables, with eggs, milk, whole wheat and a few vegetables close behind. The Indian Food Composition Tables 2017 put whole urad at 3.98 mg per 100 g and urad dal at 2.95 mg, ahead of every cereal. The portions below are calculated from those tables; grains and pulses are weighed raw. The site has no ranked table for this vitamin, but each food's full panel is in the nutrient tables for Indian foods and on pages such as black gram (urad).

No single food has to carry the day, which is the point of a vitamin that is spread this widely. A vegetarian gets it from dal at two meals, chapatis, a glass of milk and a vegetable; an egg or a piece of fish adds more, and the nutrient panel for cow's milk and the panel for a hen's egg show the rest of what each brings. The FAO and WHO consultation lists animal tissues, whole-grain cereals and legumes as the good sources and adds the words "widely distributed".

Does milling or cooking remove pantothenic acid?

Milling removes some, but far less than it removes of thiamine. In the Indian tables whole wheat atta has 0.87 mg per 100 g and maida 0.72 mg, and brown rice has 0.61 mg against 0.57 mg in raw milled rice. Polishing takes thiamine in rice from 0.27 mg down to 0.05 mg, a much steeper fall. A boiled egg measures 1.42 mg per 100 g against 1.47 mg raw. The vitamin does dissolve in water, and ICMR-NIN's 2024 Dietary Guidelines warn that B complex vitamins may be lost if the cooking water is thrown away.

Is pantothenic acid deficiency a problem in India?

As a disease seen in clinics, no; as a number in diet surveys, the picture is less tidy. The FAO and WHO consultation says the widespread occurrence of pantothenic acid in food makes a dietary deficiency unlikely, and that where one does occur it usually comes with shortages of other nutrients. No national survey figure for pantothenic acid status in Indians was found while preparing this entry, so there is no prevalence to quote.

One recent Indian study counted intake. Among 340 lactating women from Scheduled Tribe communities in Guntur district, Andhra Pradesh, a 24-hour dietary recall analysed with the Indian food tables gave a mean pantothenic acid intake of 3.12 mg a day, and the authors reported that every mother fell short of the ICMR levels for it and for six other B vitamins. That is under half the 7 mg proposed for lactation. It shows a poor diet overall, not B5 disease: the study measured food eaten on one day and did not examine the women for signs of deficiency.

Burning feet: the picture when deficiency is produced on purpose

Most of what is known comes from experiments, not from patients. The consultation describes volunteers fed semi-synthetic diets almost free of the vitamin, and others given a compound that blocks it. They became irritable, developed low blood pressure on standing, a fast heart rate on exertion, stomach distress with loss of appetite and constipation, and numbness and tingling of the hands and feet, the "burning feet" syndrome. In one such study the amount passed in urine fell from about 3 mg to 0.8 mg a day in young men kept on a deficient diet for 84 days.

What does the evidence say about pantothenic acid supplements?

For sport, two controlled trials found nothing. In Nottingham, eight healthy men took 1.5 g a day of pantothenic acid with the amino acid cysteine for a week, 300 times the adequate intake, in a randomised double-blind crossover. Muscle coenzyme A did not rise, fuel use during cycling did not change and work output was no different from placebo. In Australia, 14 trained male cyclists took 6 g a day for 16 weeks or served as controls; again muscle coenzyme A and performance were unchanged. Both were small studies in men, but they point the same way.

For acne, the evidence is one small trial. A 12-week randomised, placebo-controlled study recruited 48 adults with mild to moderate facial acne, of whom 41 could be analysed, and reported fewer lesions with a pantothenic acid-based supplement. The trial was sponsored by a marketing company, and its own authors wrote that further randomised trials were warranted. One short, sponsored study of 41 people is a reason for more research, not a basis for advice.

For cholesterol, the trials concern pantethine, a derivative, and not the vitamin in a B-complex tablet. A triple-blinded trial randomised 32 North American adults at low to moderate cardiovascular risk to pantethine or placebo for 16 weeks and recorded an 11 per cent fall in LDL cholesterol from baseline on pantethine against a 3 per cent rise on placebo. The study was small and measured a blood marker, not heart attacks. It tells you nothing about ordinary pantothenic acid, and it is no substitute for medicines a doctor has prescribed.

A worked example: a vegetarian day counted against 5 mg

This is an illustration, not a real person. Take a 34-year-old vegetarian schoolteacher in Pune whose adequate intake is 5 mg. Her day holds four chapatis from 120 g of atta (1.04 mg), 75 g of raw rice (0.43 mg), toor dal at lunch (30 g, 0.38 mg), moong dal at dinner (30 g, 0.50 mg), a glass of milk (0.68 mg), potato (100 g, 0.38 mg), cauliflower (100 g, 0.62 mg), a small handful of groundnuts (0.30 mg) and a banana (100 g, 0.36 mg). The total is about 4.7 mg.

She is within a whisker of the figure without trying, and small changes close the gap. A second glass of milk adds about 0.68 mg and takes the day to roughly 5.4 mg. Swapping the toor dal for urad dal, as in a dal makhani, adds about 0.5 mg. Two cautions apply: the figures are for raw foods, so some loss in cooking is likely, and the consultation estimates that only about half the pantothenate in natural foods may be available to the body. The 5 mg figure was itself drawn from intakes of such foods.

Common mistakes and myths about vitamin B5

The second mistake is to read "pro-vitamin B5" on a shampoo or cream as a nutrition claim. Panthenol in a cosmetic is applied to hair or skin; it says nothing about your diet and is outside the scope of intake figures. The third is to take tiredness as a sign of B5 deficiency because fatigue appears on symptom lists. Fatigue was recorded in volunteers on a laboratory diet, and in daily life it has many commoner causes. The fourth is to assume a separate B5 tablet is needed on top of a B-complex, a question the article on B-complex tablets takes up.

Too much pantothenic acid, safety and when to see a doctor

No harm from pantothenic acid in food has been described. The FAO and WHO consultation states that toxicity is not a problem with pantothenate, and ICMR-NIN has set no upper limit. Absence of a limit is not proof that gram doses are harmless over years; it means the data to set one do not exist. The sports trials above ran for 16 weeks at most. Anyone who is pregnant, breastfeeding, giving supplements to a child or taking regular medicines should ask a doctor before using a high-dose single-vitamin product.

FSSAI's rules for a pantothenic acid supplement

India's food regulator treats B5 like any other vitamin in a health supplement. FSSAI's regulations on health supplements and nutraceuticals say the quantity of a nutrient added shall not exceed the recommended daily allowance specified by ICMR. They list the permitted sources of pantothenic acid as calcium and sodium D-pantothenate and panthenol, and allow manufacturers an overage of 10 per cent above the label claim to cover losses in storage.

The label has work to do as well. Every pack must carry the words "HEALTH SUPPLEMENT", declare the amount of each nutrient, show that amount as a percentage of the ICMR allowance, print the advisory "NOT FOR MEDICINAL USE" and warn against exceeding the recommended daily usage. It must also state that the product is not to be used as a substitute for a varied diet. A product promising to treat acne or cholesterol is making a claim these rules do not permit a supplement to make. The wider question is discussed in whether to take a multivitamin.

Learning this properly

Pantothenic acid is a useful teaching case because it shows how a requirement is set when the evidence is thin. The topic is taught at NNWA, a private skill academy in Kolkata that holds its classes online in English and Hindi. Its courses prepare people to coach healthy clients and to refer medical cases onward; none is a degree or a dietitian qualification. The Diploma in Nutrition, Dietetics and Public Health covers the vitamins and diet planning, and the Clinical Nutrition course deals with diet in illness.