Vegan Friend has Low b12. Where can tablets be purchased from?

[SunnyWorld]

Many thanks in advance

[clivealive Forum Support]

Hi SunnyWorld your friend being Vegan runs the risk of becoming Vitamin B12 deficient as we only source it naturally by eating animal products.

However it is a simple matter to talk to a pharmacist who will be able to suggest suitable supplements and as long as your friend doesn't have an absorption problem with his digestive system the deficiency can be avoided - these will be for life or as long as he/she are Vegan.

I am not a medically trained person.

I wish you well.

[th3joker]

I got some from amazon

[Sleepybunny]

Hi,

In UK, people with severe dietary B12 deficiency are sometimes treated with B12 injections.

If your friend has neurological symptoms due to B12 deficiency then B12 injections are recommended in UK guidelines.

BSH Cobalamin and Folate Guidelines

b-s-h.org.uk/guidelines/gui...

It is possible to have more than one cause of B12 deficiency at the same time so your friend might want to have tests to exclude possibility of PA (Pernicious Anaemia), Coeliac and other conditions that can lead to B12 deficiency.

I wrote a detailed reply in another thread on the forum with links to lots of B12 info. There may be some useful info for your friend there.

healthunlocked.com/pasoc/po...

Some info may be specific to UK.

I am not medically trained.

[JoannePA]

Holland and barrett have them

[SunnyWorld]

Thank you everyone

[wedgewood]

If your friend has any B12 deficiency symptoms ( there are many , but one usually gets a small range , not the whole lot -google to find out ) he/she should consult a doctor , who will probably give some B12 injections which will give a head-start , before taking oral tablets . Vegans can get Pernicious Anaemia of course, just like anyone else . If this were the case , oral tablets would not help , only injections , for life , as P.A. is incurable .

[Gambit62 Administrator]

your friend wants to use supplements with up to 50mcg of B12 - avoid the really high dose ones that someone with a b12 absorption problem would use.

The BNF recommendation for resolving a dietary deficiency is 50mcg 2x daily. After a couple of months your friend should probably lower the dose to nearer RDA - which is generally available in a multi-vitamin. There are vegan multi-vitamins available - but they could also look at fortified foods - eg breakfast cereals.

[fbirder]

While it is true that vegans can also have pernicious anaemia is is more than ten times as likely that any B12 deficiency is caused by the diet, not PA. So it makes far more sense to treat the deficiency as if it were dietary rather than embarking on a course of injections that can (according to some people) get your B12 levels high enough to trigger a functional deficiency that would require injections for life.

It makes no difference whether you take 50 mcg or 1000 mcg tablets as the B12 absorption process has a limited capacity of about 10 mcg at a time. Even those who believe in passive absorption think that only 10% is absorbed this way, so you'd still only be getting a fairly small dose. And it's much easier to find 1000 mcg tablets (from somewhere like Amazon) than 50 mcg (unless you get the tablets on prescription in the UK).

I would advise them to get 1000 mcg tablets of cyanocobalamin from Amazon and take one a day until they'd run out and get a B12 test. Then, if levels are high, switch to a simple supermarket multi-B vitamin (that contains at least 2.5 mcg of B12) and take one a day.

[psawant in reply to fbirder]

If deficiency is diet related can it trigger functional deficiency if i started injections?

[fbirder in reply to psawant]

Personally, I don't think that injections can trigger a functional deficiency at all, because there is no evidence for it. But some people do believe that is the case.. If they are correct then anybody with very high levels of B12 (higher than can possibly be achieved with oral supplements) is at risk of this.

[HelloSun]

Wait. Wait wait- so b12 injections can trigger a functional deficiency? Can someone elaborate further? Thanks

[psawant in reply to HelloSun]

Yeah elaborate please

[fbirder in reply to HelloSun]

healthunlocked.com/pasoc/po...

healthunlocked.com/pasoc/po...

Personally, I don't think that there is any real evidence for this happening to any significant degree (i.e., it might have happened to one or two people).

[Gambit62 Administrator]

HelloSun psawant

Functional B12 deficiency is when you have high serum B12 levels but not enough B12 is getting through to your cells. Nobody really understands why it occurs and how it operates but raised serum B12 does appear to be the trigger to a reaction that makes the processes that transfer B12 from blood to cell less efficient. Functional B12 deficiency is a recognised symptom of some conditions that naturally cause B12 levels to rise (such as liver and kidney conditions).

For ethical reasons there have never been any actual studies that have deliberately raised B12 levels in healthy individuals to see how prevalent this response to raised serum B12 levels are ...

If you are severely B12 deficient - regardless of the cause (dietary or not) - the risks of permanent nerve damage from failing to restore B12 levels will totally outweigh the theoretical risk of a functional B12 deficiency from raised serum B12 levels and as continuing with injections thereafter to keep high serum B12 levels - which seems to resolve the problem - is extremely low, injections are definitely the best way to go.

However, if the deficiency is dietary and the deficiency doesn't involve neurological problems the correct approach would be to reverse the dietary deficiency, with a small amount of additional supplementation to allow stores in the liver to rebuild. I would personally advise against going for doses of 1000mcg + as these can make interpreting subsequent B12 tests much more complicated.

b12-institute.nl/caution-no...

[SunnyWorld]

Thank you everyone. Lots more interesting information 😁

[BadHare]

Nutritional yeast is very popular with veggies. I inject hydroxocobalamin but use Engevita in soups, stews, sauces & baked veg as the taste is so nice. It didn't do a lot for my B12 levels as with a few supplements I don't absorb. There's even one with vitamin D though I've read it's not heat tolerant. Solgar sublinguals were the best brand for me. Others your friend could try are Cytoplan or Jarrow. If your friend has no absorption issues, as good quality B complex might be fine. The Vegan Society is great for health & nutritional advice as well as recipe ideas, & there are lots of vegan food blogs.