Chemotherapy and B12

[helvella]

Someone I know has some sort of brain tumour and has had his first (of three planned) rounds of chemotherapy. Not that I know what chemotherapy agent they actually used.

Looks like round two is coming up very soon.

Is there any reason to consider that a chemotherapy agent might affect his B12 level? Despite a real person prompting this question, I am asking more because, having had the thought, I can't dismiss it.

[Nackapan]

I googled it as interested.

Radiotherapy depletes more including b12 .

Chemotherapy depletes vitamins and folate . Didn't mention b12.

So hopefully a blood test will be done after and 3 months after that.

To rectify any deficiencies caused.

My mum had extensive Radiotherapy at the age of 38. It explained the damage to her bowel which I thought the start of b12 deficiency . Not that she got treatment for yrsrs.

Perhaus she has PA though.

Still on b12 injections and 91 ??

[Gambit62 Administrator]

It really depends on the chemotherapy - some can affect B12 and others can be affected by B12 - they really need to speak to their oncologist.

[helvella in reply to Gambit62]

Thank you.

I wanted not to be raising a flag if it has never been thought a possibility. But with that answer, it passes the threshold of being worth raising.

[deniseinmilden]

Because my various extreme vitamin and mineral deficiencies give very similar symptoms to some versions of chemotherapy I spoke in some detail with a senior oncologist about it.

At the time my questions were two fold: I wondered if what it was in the chemo that was obviously causing the lock-up of vitamins and minerals could be somehow naturally occuring in me and, conversely, I wondered if the negative effects of the chemo could be minimised by vitamin and mineral supplemention to help those going through treatment.

Basically by prescribing chemo they are deliberately starving the cells in the body, including the cancer cells, of nutrients so that they cannot replicate. Because the cancer cells have gone into "overdrive" in their replication they use up their supply of nutrients more quickly than healthy cells and therefore their mad replication gets disrupted to the point where they are then vulnerable to treatment. It is what helps to stop cancer becoming metastatic and spreading. When the errant cells have been eradicated it is safe to return the body to good nutrition to get your normal cells working again.

So it is unhelpful to add in supplements alongside the chemo (because one counters the other) but good for restoration once the all clear has been given.

Some chemo drugs (eg methotrexate) are given for immune suppression for other conditions (eg autoimmune arthritis) but are only used, say one day a week - when all supplements are stopped - but on the other days high-dose supplements are given to enable the body to function effectively 6 days out of 7, with the treatment on the 7th day being enough to suppress the disease.

It's all a bit "sledgehammer" but reasonably effective and clever too.

It didn't really shed any light on why my body doesn't want to work but confirmed my thinking of the cellular requirements for systemic nutrition.