Whether you have pernicious anemia or not it important for everyone to take a 1000ugs of Vitamin B12 daily.
B12 lowers Homostyine which causes strokes and heart attacks. Doctors research is ignored. The research papers that are published are never read.
Admin Note: 1000mcg is way more than is necessary for someone who doesn't have an aborption problem. Daily intake from food should be perfectly adequate for people without an absorption problem, unless they are strict vegans or eat very little by way of animal products - in which case you should supplement with around 5-10mcg daily.
Whilst B12 isn't toxic, taking in large doses on a regular basis can result in serum B12 building up and this could lead to problems for some people.
Homocysteine levels will be raised if you have a B12 deficiency. Taking B12 to correct a deficiency will lower homocysteine levels but only because it is correcting the deficiency. High homocysteine levels can also be caused by folate deficiency.
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victoria1000
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Victoria1000 - unless you have a B12 absorption problem there is no scientific evidence that such high doses are necessary - without an absorption problems amounts of 2.5-5 mcg are all that is needed. Vegans taking supplements in just one go may need to take slightly more - 10mcg. That is 100th of the amount you are advocating.
Further - B12 will only lower homocysteine levels if they are raised due to a B12 deficiency. B12 deficiency is not the only cause of raised homocysteine levels - folate deficiency will also have the same effect.
Most research on B12 isn't done by medical doctors. The volume of research currently being undertaken is such that nobody would be able to keep up with more than a fractio of it and people will tend to focus on their own specialisms and interests. Because of the way specialisms in medicine operate there is no general specialism in B12 - it cuts across other specialisms. Whilst it is true that many medical practitioners are not very aware of B12 deficiency - GPs have a huge number of conditions to keep track off - this is very different from asserting that research is never read.
I am vegan and have been taking vitamin B 12 1000ugs since 2001. 3 members of my family have died from strokes
I am a healthy. When I was asked to have my health check at my GPs recently I was told they would see me in 5 years time. It nice to save the NHS time and money
I am glad that it seems to work for you but as a vegan 1000mcg is likely to be more than you really need. The human body seems to regulate the amount of B12 it absorbs from food so most of the B12 is probably passing straight through your gut with very little actually getting into your blood and there is probably very little differennce between the amount you are absorbing for 1000mcg and the amount you would absorb from 10mcg.
Indeed, with that much B12 in the gut it is quite possibly that the IF and HC binding capacities have been saturated, leaving free B12 in there. That will be very yummy to some of the gut bacteria.
Could it be that as (respectfully) an "old lady" victoria1000 you may have an absorption problem with your digestive system due to reduced acid levels?
It's funny when one is well one forgets what it was like to feel poorly. I had pin and needles in my fingers fast heart beat so that made me think I would get a Stoke like my uncles and Gran. When I read about B12 online I felt empowed. Over the years the have been loads of studies about B12 and B vitamins
fbirder Can you explain further? This is something I have never come across before, despite reading everything in sight about B12 supplementation and symptoms. Where does this come from - can you point me to the source? Many thanks.
*re "the IF and HC binding capacities have been saturated, leaving free B12 in there. That will be very yummy to some of the gut bacteria."
Gambit62 is this part of the admin note: "Whilst B12 isn't toxic, taking in large doses on a regular basis can result in serum B12 building up and this could lead to problems for some people." ?? Everything I've read up to this point has said this is not the case, that serum B12 doesn't build up because any excess is expelled.
Additionally, I've read many times that the elderly (over 50s) will have more difficulty in absorbing B12 from their diet, so supplementation should help.
if you put anything into your body faster than your body can remove it it will build up. 1000mcg probably isn't going to be an issue but taking huge multiples of that - some people without B12 absorption problems do take 10x that or even more.
The issue with people getting older tends to be reduction in stomach acidity. High doses may help but there are still issues around the amount that can be absorbed at one time. Additionally elderly people may also have other conditions (eg kidney problems) that can affect the rate at which B12 is removed leading to build ups. It is all very difficult and very complex which is one reason why I really wouldn't like to advise anyone to take such large doses unless they have a B12 absorption problem and have taken medical advice though I totally recognise that finding a medical professional who can really provide good quality advice in relation to B12 deficiency and absorption problems is very hit and miss.
Patrick Holford checked the health of the national and he found Homocysteine levels as high as 30 in young kids of 10 & 12 year olds because they are eating fast foods and getting too much meat which cases high levels of Homostyine. That's why the Government is asking us to eat less meat.
the problems with fast foods isn't as simple as meat content - it is also about fat content and the lack of dietary sources of vitamins such as folate and B6 (fresh fruit and vegetable) - which I suspect is more of a factor in linkage between a fast-food diet and homocysteine than just the meat content of the diet.
Western nations do tend to eat too much animal protein and that does seem to correlate to higher levels of plasma homocysteine, where as plant protein tends to correlate to lower levels of plasma homocysteine.
There are a lot of other things in western diets that are also out of balance - such as carbohydrate rich food, fat rich food and low levels of dietary fibre - not really a topic for this forum.
Exactly, getting informed medical treatment and advice is virtually impossible, especially given the tests are mostly inaccurate. Getting a diagnosis of malabsorption and its cause, or gastric atrophy, is also very, very difficult (IBS diagnosis without any testing at all, anyone?) And the 'reduction in stomach acidity with age' I've never seen discussed medically, along with the nutritional implications.
So, I'm also wondering how this relates to injections and frequent self-injecting? Many (most) people can't provide 'evidence' that they need regular large amounts of B12, apart from the fact that they 'feel' better, and symptoms may improve or go into temporary remission while taking the injections/tablets (medic's response to that likely to be 'anecdotal evidence' or 'placebo effect' or 'no evidence that you need B12'). In the first place, the symptoms can be quite non specific and difficult to 'prove' (exhaustion, tingling, numbness et al).
An important question, then, is what are the symptoms and effects of excessive build up? Can they be differentiated from symptoms of the condition?
I have read research papers from the USA which shows that B12 1000ugs works and people don't need injections. My friend's Dad had Dementia and after he was tested at the Hospital the staff wanted to know why his GP had not tested his B12 level.
victoria1000, this forum is about B12 absorption problems not about veganism and how to compensate for a lack of dietary B12.
The studies on use of oral B12 do actually give mixed results - a more recent study looking at bio-markers at the cellular level implied that use of oral as an alternative to injections may not be as safe as people just looking at serum B12 had implied.
The studies related to people with absorption problems not with a lack of B12 in their diet.
the easiest short-term way of treating a functional B12 deficiency - which is high serum B12 but insufficient being available at the cell level - is actually to raise serum B12 levels so enough gets through to the cells because the problem appears to be the efficiency of transfer from blood to cells is impaired.
This would be a good reason for agreeing to more frequent injections in people who appear to have returning symptoms of B12 deficiency and those symptoms resolving when the levels are kept high.
It isn't an area that is particularly well understood because it isn't really a general population issue - things that cause high serum B12 levels - even including absorption problems treated with injections - only relate to a relatively small element of the population so it isn't a top priority for research, unfortunately for those of us that suffer in this way.
The tests used to identify a functional deficiency - MMA and homocysteine - just look at 2 of the many processes that involve B12 in a cell - they are the key ones so are likely to catch most instances but there are some medical experts who doubt that they tell the whole story as other processes that aren't being measured could be being affected. So, another area in which understanding of the detail of what is going on with B12 is sketcy.
However, just because injections are the best way of treating a functional deficiency doesn't mean it is safe to encourage behaviour (oversupplementation) that might lead to a functional deficiency. The human body is designed to absorb micronutrients from foods not from artificial supplements. It tends to have mechanisms that stop over-absorption from dietary intake, as seems to be the case with B12 and B6 - but high dose supplements bypass these mechanisms. Diet should be the first call for micronutrients with supplementation in cases where absorption is compromised or there are life-choices that mean dietary intake is compromised. In the case of life-choices the level of artificial supplementation needs to be commensurate with daily needs, to avoid creating an artificial problem.
I am not saying that GPs don't need to be much more aware of the symptoms and impact of B12 deficiency so they are able to recognise it better. I am also not saying that GPs don't need to understand the limitations of tests they may carry out - which doesn't just apply to B12 but also applies to many other situations including the use of ferritin as a single measure of iron status and the use of TSH as a single marker for thyroid status. They do need to be a lot more aware of symptoms and the limitations of diagnostic tests and they do need to be taking much more notice of symptoms. They also need to stop dismissing them as 'depression' and handling out anti-depressants as a cure-all.
All. This post has now become way off-topic, so I am going to close it to further replies.
To finish with a further clarification...
Please note accurate and appropriate comments in this thread which state that the dose of vitamin B12 advocated by the poster is too high for those who supplement due to dietary deficiencies (vegans, vegetarians, etc).
U.K. guidelines for the treatment of cobalamin deficiencies do not advocate oral B12 supplements for those with absorption issues, Pernicious Anaemia, or B12 deficiency from other causes.
Research which appeared to demonstrate that oral supplements are sufficient for those with Pernicious Anaemia/B12 deficiency is flawed (it only measured serum B12 levels, did not measure how much was getting into the cells (where it's needed), did not assess efficacy of treatment by evaluating symptom relief (whether the oral B12 actually worked, or not), and there were no Pernicious Anaemia sufferers in the research subjects...and there were other issues too (which I don't have time to post, right now).
B12 only lowers homocysteine if this is caused by folate / B12 deficiency (folate is usually more of a culprit that vItamin B12): B12 has no effect on raised homocysteine levels if these are caused by other health issues (and there are many, including poor diet choices).
Important Note: If you think you have B12 deficiency do not take any form of B12 supplements before all testing is completed. This will 'skew' blood test results and make it impossible to get a correct diagnosis and hence appropriate treatment.
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