Choline
A vitamin-like nutrient from egg yolks, taken for memory and in pregnancy.
- Memory and focus
- Pregnancy and babies
- Getting enough choline
A plain-English overview, not advice. Written from published reviews and trials and from what people say in public forums.
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On this page
What is choline?
Choline is a vitamin-like nutrient that the body draws mainly from food, and egg yolks are by far the richest everyday source. The United States named it an essential nutrient in 1998, and reviews have returned ever since to the same gap: most people take in less than the recommended amount, and most pregnant and breastfeeding women do too. That gap is expected to widen as more people eat plant-based diets, which carry less of it. On a shelf it appears as choline bitartrate or choline chloride, and as lecithin and phosphatidylcholine, where the choline is carried inside a fat.
Why do people take choline?
Memory and focus
The thinking. Choline is the raw material the body uses to make acetylcholine, one of the chemical messengers nerve cells send to each other, and that link is the whole idea behind taking it for the mind. People reach for it hoping for sharper recall and steadier concentration, often while studying or working long hours.
What research has found. One systematic review gathered what has been measured in adults across thinking, body composition and heart measures. On thinking, it found that the high-quality trials needed to test the idea had not been done, and described the evidence for the effects suggested so far as scarce. Few studies have measured this yet, so there is little to go on either way.
Pregnancy and babies
The thinking. Choline does two jobs that matter early on: it helps build the membranes of new cells, and it hands over methyl groups, the chemical tags that switch genes on and off as a body is laid down. Demand rises steeply in pregnancy and breastfeeding, and most women take in less than the recommended amount.
What research has found. Trials gave pregnant women roughly the recommended amount or about double it, then followed the children. Two measured faster reaction times in infancy and better sustained attention at seven; one found more newborns damping their response to a repeated sound at five weeks, with no difference by thirteen; and one, in women already eating moderate amounts, found no difference in memory, language or development. Reviews pooling all of it found most outcomes came out level. Studies here point in different directions, so this one is still being worked out; the dose, how long people took it and who took part all seem to matter.
Getting enough choline
The thinking. Egg yolks carry more choline than most foods, so a diet built without them can leave a gap, and plenty of choline is bought simply to cover it rather than to feel anything. The question that follows is whether the form on the label changes what gets in.
What research has found. In one crossover study, six adults took the same amount of choline as four different supplements a week apart; all four raised blood choline and betaine within hours, the egg-derived fat peaking latest. The water-soluble forms also raised TMAO, a compound gut bacteria make from choline, while the fat-based one did not. Extra choline in feeds lifted blood levels in babies born early too. Research here is still young: a few studies so far, mostly pointing the same way.
What does choline do in the body?
Most of the choline in the body is not floating about loose. It is built into phosphatidylcholine, the main fat in the membrane that wraps every cell, which is why a growing body needs so much of it. Some is turned into acetylcholine, one of the chemical messengers nerve cells use to signal to each other. The rest is sent to the mitochondria, the cell’s power plants, and converted into betaine.
Betaine does the quieter work. It hands out methyl groups to the body’s one-carbon chemistry, the production line that tags DNA and the proteins packed around it, and so has a say in which genes get read. That is the thread running through the pregnancy research, since the same tagging shapes how a nervous system is laid down. Immune cells draw on choline for both purposes, membranes and methylation, when they gear up. Where choline runs short, the research points to the liver, the lungs and the brain.
What do people say about taking choline?
These are anecdotes people have shared, not evidence.
What people like
- Clearer thinking and sharper recall is the commonest report, usually noticed within a few weeks and most often from the fattier lecithin forms.
- Often people describe steadier concentration and energy, and several say the first few weeks felt strongest before the effect settled down.
- In the pregnancy threads the appeal is covering a gap rather than feeling anything, and most posters expected no sensation and reported none.
- Some on plant-based diets say topping up lifted mood and thinking, having worked out from a food diary that they were falling short.
Common complaints
- Loose stools or an upset stomach is the commonest complaint, and the usual reason people stop even when they liked the effect.
- Several describe a low, flat mood on anything cholinergic, and that is the complaint the more experienced posters take most seriously.
- A minority mention jaw tension, headache or broken sleep at higher doses, often easing when they build the dose up more slowly.
- British posters find it hard to buy plain choline at a modest dose, since most products pair it with inositol or add fillers.
- Some report nothing at all, and a few say an early lift faded away after the first month or two of taking it.
How people take it
- Doses vary enormously, from a couple of hundred milligrams beside a prenatal tablet to several grams of lecithin granules a day.
- Very commonly people start low and build up slowly, and split the dose across the day, because reactions differ so much between them.
- The form is argued over more than the dose, with the fatty lecithin forms generally preferred over the salt for comfort.
- In the pregnancy threads eggs come first, and a supplement is used only to cover the days when no eggs are eaten.
- Some take it alongside B vitamins, fish oil or betaine, and a few track their intake in an app before deciding.
Read from these public discussions:
- Does anyone take a Choline supplement? (Mumsnet, 2021)
- Actual brain fog caused by low choline, leading to low acetylcholine? (Phoenix Rising, 2017)
- Anyone know of any negative experiences with Choline? (Phoenix Rising, 2017)
- Favorite Choline? (Phoenix Rising, 2015)
- Need Help for Choline Supplementation (LongeCity, 2018)
- Choline & a Vegan Diet (Vegan Forum, 2020)
What forms of choline are there?
| Form | What’s different | Choline by weight | Per serving, on products we list |
|---|---|---|---|
| Choline bitartrate | Choline joined to tartaric acid as a salt, so the label figure weighs more than the choline inside. | about 41.1 % | not in our price tables yet |
| Other forms | Plain choline, choline chloride, and lecithin or phosphatidylcholine, where the figure that counts is the choline itself. | about 100.0 %, otherwise as the label states | 500 mg |
What else is worth knowing about choline?
- Labels give the amount per serving, and a serving may be more than one capsule; a bitartrate or chloride label sometimes states the weight of the salt rather than the choline inside it.
- Trials in pregnancy used 480 to 930 milligrams a day and recorded no adverse effects on the mothers, on delivery or on infant development; the adult studies used a single 550 milligram dose.
- Choline is a raw material gut bacteria turn into TMAO. Over four weeks the water-soluble supplement forms raised fasting TMAO and platelet stickiness, while whole eggs and the fat-based form did not.
- The studies behind this page were mostly in particular groups: women in the last third of pregnancy, babies born early, and a small number of healthy adult men.
If you take medication, are pregnant, or have a health condition, check with a pharmacist or GP first.
The research behind this page (19 studies)
- Effects of choline on health across the life course: a systematic review. (2015, systematic review)
- Choline During Pregnancy and Child Neurodevelopment: A Systematic Review of Randomized Controlled Trials and Observational Studies. (2025, systematic review)
- Choline in Pregnancy and Lactation: Essential Knowledge for Clinical Practice. (2025, systematic review)
- Association between Maternal Choline, Fetal Brain Development, and Child Neurocognition: Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Human Studies. (2022, meta-analysis)
- Choline, Neurological Development and Brain Function: A Systematic Review Focusing on the First 1000 Days. (2020, systematic review)
- Prenatal choline supplementation improves child sustained attention: A 7-year follow-up of a randomized controlled feeding trial. (2022, randomised trial)
- Maternal choline supplementation during the third trimester of pregnancy improves infant information processing speed: a randomized, double-blind, controlled feeding study. (2018, randomised trial)
- Perinatal choline effects on neonatal pathophysiology related to later schizophrenia risk. (2013, randomised trial)
- Phosphatidylcholine supplementation in pregnant women consuming moderate-choline diets does not enhance infant cognitive function: a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial. (2012, randomised trial)
- The use of choline supplementation in premature newborns: a systematic review. (2025, systematic review)
- Differential metabolism of choline supplements in adult volunteers. (2022, randomised trial)
- Dietary Choline Supplements, but Not Eggs, Raise Fasting TMAO Levels in Participants with Normal Renal Function: A Randomized Clinical Trial. (2021, randomised trial)
- Combined choline and DHA supplementation: a randomized controlled trial. (2020, randomised trial)
- Choline supplements: An update. (2023, review)
- Prenatal Folate and Choline Levels and Brain and Cognitive Development in Children: A Critical Narrative Review. (2022, review)
- Prenatal and Postnatal Choline Supplementation in Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder. (2022, review)
- Maternal choline supplementation: a nutritional approach for improving offspring health? (2014, review)
- Choline in immunity: a key regulator of immune cell activation and function. (2025, review)
- The role of maternal choline, folate and one-carbon metabolism in mediating the impact of prenatal alcohol exposure on placental and fetal development. (2023, review)
How much does choline cost?
That depends on the form and the pack, so we work out the price of the same dose of every choline product we can find and rank them.