Licorice and B12 Absorption

[MoKayD]

Recently I was googling side effects from eating licorice (I love licorice but had stopped eating it years ago because I read it was bad for your heart.) I found this study and am now considering adding small amounts of licorice back in my diet. ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articl...

[Nackapan]

That's so interesting. I felt addicted to liquorice for about a year leading to collapse .

Still like it but woyid have to be so careful now as have dodgy teeth.

Also a new crown.

Soft Australian liquorice harder to get now .

I wonder why one of the reasons older people want it .

I always thought as a laxative as disabled know too.

Now another reason.

Brilliant.

Not aware of thr down sides apart from sugar molasses in some csn affect teeth or weight gain .

Yum

[MoKayD in reply to Nackapan]

We went to Iceland about 5 years ago and was very happy to discover people from Iceland are obsessed with licorice. It's pretty hard core stuff too. Very strong and they also sell salted licorice.

[wedgewood]

I suppose that Liquorice could be useful to B12 deficiency patients , but not to PA patients who have to rely solely on B12 injections .

[Nackapan in reply to wedgewood]

I don't think anyone with an absorption problem could rely on liquorice.

Slowed down absorbtion perhaps aided by those without a deficiency.

I think just interesting .

and a good reason to consume it lol!

[wedgewood in reply to Nackapan]

Having read what Technoid has written , I don’t think that liquorice can be relied on ! But I just love it if i can get the right sort .

Trouble is that one grasps at straws when the medical profession is so ignorant about B12 deficiency !

[Dilly_blue in reply to wedgewood]

Within the article (attached by MoKayD) it also mentions that the licorice compound also reduces inflammation (significantly reducing levels of pro-inflammatory cytokines IL-6 and TNF-a), which I suspect could potentially contribute to reducing the risk of gastric cancer (for people with PA / GPC ab or IFab). I have been doing a lot of reading around cancer and inflammation recently, and understand (from what I have read) that inflammatory processes can increase risk of cancer. So licorice may be useful in that regard for those with PA..

I think I will definitely explore licorice tea as a daily routine for this reason (I have GPC ab, and gastritis).

[Dilly_blue in reply to Dilly_blue]

…but in limited quantities (ie half a cup of licorice tea a day), as mentioned in Technoid’s post and link below..

[Technoid]

Hm. Some thoughts.

Its a mouse model so limited in usefulness in terms of whether that might transfer to humans.

The experiment was conducted with an extract, so there is no guarantee of similar effects from just eating plain liqourice and not the concentrated extract. You might have to eat a lot more liqourice for such an effect... and that would be a very risky thing as shown below.

The mechanistic explanations for why it would increase absorption seem a little vague/speculative. At one point they say it might be as a result of causing increased intestinal permeability. I thought that was also called "leaky gut" and was a bad thing?

It's not clear which absorption mechanism is affected, would this work in the absence of intrinsic factor?

There's a paper saying virtually the opposite, that moderate liquorice intake decreases serum B12. ref : endocrine-abstracts.org/ea/...

The American Heart Association have a page on black liqourice that includes reports of death from over consumption:

heart.org/en/news/2022/10/2...

An extract:

"Eaten in large amounts, black licorice can lower the body's potassium levels – significantly. Potassium is important for heart health, and if levels plummet, it can lead to problems such as abnormal heart rhythms and congestive heart failure."

A cardiologist quoted in the article said : "But there's no good answer to the question of how much black licorice is safe, he said. "It's not well-studied."

Some additional video resources on it:

m.youtube.com/watch?v=MMay6...(Not working as expected?)

For all of the above reasons, I'm not convinced at all of the benefits of black liqourice and although you might suffer no ill effects from eating small amounts, there is little evidence of benefit and some well reported cases of harm.

I will be skipping!

[Misterholmes in reply to Technoid]

I do think that the Ama has sufficiently shown itself to be so corrupted that no opinion they could offer {negative or positive} is safe enough to handle by anyone other than experienced fraud investigators. To represent the Heart without even mentioning Magnesium is Fraud at the highest imaginable level.

[Technoid in reply to Misterholmes]

Not sure if you're mentioning this in relation to their article on liqourice or just in general?

[Misterholmes in reply to Technoid]

Inspired by Licorice...

[Technoid in reply to Misterholmes]

There is a 2020 paper published in the journal of the american heart association : "Relationship Between Dietary Magnesium Intake and Incident Heart Failure Among Older Women: The WHI"

The conclusion of the paper was:

"Low magnesium intake in a multiracial cohort of postmenopausal women was associated with a higher risk of incident HF, especially HF with reduced ejection fraction."

and

"What Are the Clinical Implications?

These results suggest that ≈75% of postmenopausal women in this cohort have a median magnesium intake below US Recommended Daily Allowance levels, and a quarter of them are at increased risk of incident heart failure based on their dietary magnesium intake."

ref : ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161...

It doesn't look to me like they are "not even mentioning Magnesium"?

[Misterholmes in reply to Technoid]

Thank you 🙏

[Sea-blue in reply to Technoid]

Love your answers as always well researched and pay attention to stuff you post

[Parlay]

You will have to forgive my foggy brain but I did a lot of research into this years ago before I used it. Liquorice in small quantities is ok but “healthy” liquorice is DGL liquorice. I cant spell the word hence forgive me but if it google.com/search?q=deglycy... it’s safe.

[Technoid in reply to Parlay]

"made from licorice from which the glycyrrhizin has been removed"

Thats the problematic ingredient as I understand it, so sounds correct to me.

[deniseinmilden]

I know the study itself has its limitations, but the background piece with it is very clear and informative. It is well written and easy to follow and does explain some of the role of micronutrients and what I call "magic compounds" - unusual molecules found in natural foods that have a positive effect in different ways and show why we should try to include all sorts of fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, wholegrains, meat and fish in our diets.

Thank you for posting this! Very interesting. I can remember being able to get natural licorice sticks which you could chew when I was a kid but I haven't seen them for yonks! I'd forgotten about them, to be honest.

I like licorice flavoured tea, because it's naturally sweet.

[Cakebake]

I saw a functional doctor and she recommended limited amounts of liquorice tea, I have the Pukka one with either cinnamon or mint and it is very tasty!

[Technoid in reply to Cakebake]

based on this paper's abstract, half a cup per day of liqourice tea may be safe.

ref : endocrine-abstracts.org/ea/...

[WIZARD6787]

The heading to this post made me smile.

I first discovered black licorice when I was 8 in 1963. I would then steal it. I used to put it in my pocket and let it freeze then break off a piece and let it melt in my mouth. My first sublingual administration.

When experiencing severe B12 deficiency I would eat a pound and drive to the ocean 1.5 hours away and then sleep.

I know the stores that sell the good stuff in four countries and many states.

I concur that the salted licorice from the Netherlands is wonderful.

I am not surprised there are conflicting studies. Good news is with a lot of hard work I can determine what is good for my body. It is helpful for me to read studies about toxicity. I learned from my study of B6 that I want to be aware of fear mongering due to Noble Cause Syndrome.

I will go to a bridge today and thank my 8 to 13 old self for stealing because I needed food. When I was 13 I was making enough money so I did not have to steal. It was only wrong that it was best I steal.

[tomdickharry]

I can't comment on licorice to increase B12 absorption, but everyone needs to be aware of its effect on hormones, male and female. Personally I avoid it; as an old man my hormones are in a sorry enough state already.

[debra_bill]

My licorice of choice is Nordsø Bitter - Might do absolutely nothing for you, but after a couple of shots you won't care anymore! 🤭