What Is Choline Good For and What Are Symptoms If You Are Low?

Choline is a molecule that gets incorporated into a lot of compounds in your body. Choline is used to make a variety of biologically active compounds and a lack of choline is linked to heart defects, cleft lips, and neural tube defects.

Choline is involved in many bodily functions. It’s a molecule that gets incorporated into a lot of compounds in your body. Each of these compounds has a unique biological role.

Many adults in the U.S. get less than their recommended daily intake of choline but don’t have any noticeable symptoms. Nevertheless, you may only develop symptoms from low choline if you’re at the level of a true choline deficiency. 

In 1998, the Institute of Medicine declared that choline is an essential nutrient. It’s not specifically a vitamin or mineral. Instead, it’s just a nutrient found in food that your body needs in order to function normally. 

Choline can come in a number of forms. Some other names to look out for include: 

• Bitartrate
• Chloride 
• Dihydrogen 

Choline can either be water soluble or fat soluble. This means that some sources of choline can dissolve in water and others contain choline that can dissolve in fats.

Once choline is absorbed into your body, it’s used in a wide variety of biologically active compounds. These include: 

• Acetylcholine. This is a neurotransmitter that’s able to pass messages from one nerve to another and from nerves to muscles. 
• Lecithin. This compound is involved in the creation of plasma and lipoproteins — which are combinations of proteins and fats that are used throughout your body. 
• Sphingomyelins. These form the insulating material in your brain and nervous tissues. 

The amount of choline that you need to get each day depends on a number of factors, like your age and sex. 

In general, recommended daily intake amounts include: 

• 550 milligrams for males aged 14 and up
• 400 milligrams for females between the ages of 14 and 18
• 425 milligrams for females over the age of 18
• 450 milligrams for people who are pregnant
• 550 milligrams for people who are breastfeeding

Studies have found that most people in the U.S. aren’t meeting their choline recommendations on a daily basis. For most people, this isn’t a big problem. Still, you need to be especially attentive to the amount of choline that you’re getting if you’re pregnant or breastfeeding. 

Data indicates that somewhere between nine out of 10 or 19 out of 20 people who are pregnant or breastfeeding don’t get enough dietary choline every day. Your growing baby needs choline to develop properly, though, so make sure to up your intake if you’re not getting enough. 

At the same time, you also need to make sure that you’re not getting too much choline. Too much can lead to toxic effects. People aged 14 to 18 should not get more than 3,000 milligrams of choline a day. Adults over the age of 19 shouldn’t get more than 3,500 milligrams. 

A lot of research on choline is ongoing, so conclusions about its uses are preliminary at best. 

The most crucial proven use for choline is in fetal brain and spinal cord development. It’s necessary for you to get enough choline during your pregnancy so your baby's nervous system develops properly. 

Choline may also help with a number of neurological conditions, including: 

• Tardive dyskinesia
• Tourette syndrome
• Presenile dementia

There are some claims that choline can also help with your cholesterol, mood, and memory. All of these claims are still being investigated. You should be very skeptical of any product that claims to help with these issues and lists choline as an active ingredient.  

It’s unlikely that you’ll ever get too much choline from your diet alone, but supplements can contain high doses.

Even consuming normal amounts of pure choline in the form of supplements can lead to symptoms, including: 

• Diarrhea
• Loose stool
• Stomachaches

Symptoms become more severe when you consume large amounts of choline. In this case, large amounts are considered 20 grams or more. These symptoms can include: 

• Dizziness
• Low blood pressure
• Heart rhythm problems
• Depression
• A fishy body odor

Additionally, you shouldn’t take choline supplements if you have bipolar disorder.   

We don’t fully understand all of the problems that can result from too little choline. There’s some evidence that not getting enough can lead to developmental disorders in newborns, though, including: 

• Problems with neural tube development
• Cleft lips
• Heart defects

There’s also a chance that adults with too little choline could develop problems with their liver. Choline helps transfer fats and cholesterol out of the liver, so a deficiency could lead to issues like liver damage and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. 

Too little choline could also lead to muscle damage. More research is needed to truly understand the effects that choline deficiency has on the adult body. 

Your liver is able to produce small amounts of choline, but you need to get most of your choline from food. Sources of choline include: 

• Egg yolks
• Soybeans
• Peanuts
• Liver
• Broccoli
• Cauliflower
• Potatoes
• Beans
• Nuts
• Seeds
• Fish
• Milk 
• Peanut butter

You can check nutrition labels, but manufacturers don’t need to list the amount of choline that’s present in a product. They only need to list it if the packaging contains special claims about the amount of choline present. 

That being said, many companies choose to list choline on their labels.  

Most healthy people don’t need a choline supplement. This is true even if you’re getting less than your recommended daily intake. 

You only need to take a choline supplement if you’re at risk of developing a true choline deficiency. Those at risk for choline deficiency include people who are: 

• Pregnant or breastfeeding. In this case, you may need a supplement that’s specifically for choline because many prenatal vitamins contain little or no choline in their formulas. 
• Strict vegetarians or vegans. Some of the richest food sources for choline are animal products like milk and eggs. You may need a supplement if you never consume these products. 
• Exclusively fed intravenously (through IV). It’s difficult to get enough useable choline into your body through an IV.
• Intense, endurance-based athletes. Some evidence indicates that your body loses choline during long, intense training periods. 

Always talk to your doctor before starting a new supplement. They’ll be able to recommend the kind that’s best for you and determine whether or not it’s actually useful for your diet and lifestyle.