'Brain fog' sufferers to be tested for lack of B12
By Henry Bodkin
OLDER people experiencing "brain fog" should be tested for vitamin B12 doctors with the aim of improving the ing B12 as we age. deficiency, the health watchdog has rate of diagnosis. said.
Experts say as many as one in 20 people over 60 and one in 10 over 75 could be suffering from the deficiency, with dietary changes, the organisation said. overall numbers increasing because of the rise in veganism. The vitamin is found in meat, fish, eggs and dairy, but very little is contained in plants.
Common symptoms include fatigue, confusion, blurry vision and mental health problems such as anxiety and depression, which can make the deficiency hard to diagnose.
The Daily Telegraph - Front page - Wednesday 12th July 2023
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helvella
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As I also have 'pernicious anaemia' my GP told me I can have as many B12 injections I rhink I may need, and I now have a monthlly jab instead of quarterly.
My mother also had P.A. but unfortunately her GP told her she needed no more B12 injections as her blood test was now fine.
The result of her GPs decision enabled my mother to develop stomach cancer which was the result of (I believe) stopping her B12 injections that enabled cancer to develop.
That's like filling the tank with petrol and assuming it never needs filling again.
I just shake my head with these idiot GPs.
I thought stomach cancer was from Helicobacter pylori infection. Maybe reduced ability to absorb B12 from food might be also from the damage done to the stomach lining by this bacterium. Of course antibody testing helps to determine if it is PA or something else. And endoscopy.
Gabkad, Autoimmune metaplastic atrophic gastritis (AMAG) is the cause of stomach cancer in PA. Seen on endoscopy. Damage to mostly corpus & something else i've forgotten, usually without antrum involvement. B12 injections are the treatment.
I've often wondered if supplementing acid (ACV, lime juice, betaine) would also help forestall it. The cancer develops as a side effect of low stomach causing changes to the gastric parietal cells (which secrete the acid) and/or the antibody attack on them (GPC ABs).
H pylori can also cause atrophic gastritic but then it's not thought to be immune related. Some suggest it is but i'm not completely convinced.
But if parietal cells are damaged and the lining of the stomach is no longer normal cells, then the digestion can't be good. Proteins wouldn't be broken down to amino acids and iron wouldn't be well absorbed either. Plus other stuff as well. Sounds terrible.
What blows my mind is that extra acid supplementation is not advised. Seems totally illogical.
I'm very sorry to hear about your grandmother. And shaw's mother but i've said it before. x
My father died from esophageal cancer but my gastro now thinks it may have actually been stomach cancer that spread to the esophagus. He only had the 1 endoscopy after decades on PPIs. We knew nothing about b12 or any of this back then.
I get endoscopies & recently colonoscopies every ~3 years because of this history. My personal (nonmedical) opinion is that anyone with PA/B12D should also regularly get at least an endoscopy.
If someone is near the bottom of range (which varies quite wildly between labs and countries) then they would be considered fine and dandy? What are the targets? The article is quite useless in this regard. But at least it repeats the mantra that vegans have to supplement vitamin B12. (at the minimum)
And the other thing is elderly people tend to not consume a lot of leafy greens or fresh vegetables that contain folate. So you've got that as well to consider which is seemingly not considered.
Really, it gets complicated. They should just take a B complex capsule. But they won't unless the NHS pays for it. I think this government healthcare from birth to the grave has created a society that suffers from learned helplessness. There is an assumption that 'we paid into it' so it should provide everything but it just doesn't.
Over here a lot of seniors absolutely will not get any prescription filled that is not part of the drug benefit program much to their demise. I was at the pharmacy the other day picking up my prescriptions when the pharmacist says 'your medication is never covered by drug benefit'. My reply was 'I care about my health. I don't rely on the government.'
It's so bizarre. I'd rather pay for progesterone than have a hysterectomy. It's that simple. It costs me $55 per month to avoid the need for surgery. That's the way I look at it.
I think that 'won't pay' is only a part of the problem.
The supplement industry is full of snake oil - as well as decent things. And many simply don't have whatever it takes to investigate what is needed and follow it through. Many think they can get everything from a decent diet. (And some probably can!)
There could be room for a non-prescription prescription. A piece of paper (or an email or text message or whatever) which a doctor can use to say what the patient should be taking. For example, a dose of B12 and folate. The patient then presents that in a pharmacy or other supplement seller, or online, and they can see which products meet their needs. But the patient pays. This is simply a way to avoid mistakes, misunderstandings, inappropriate products.
One way this helps is it opens up the opportunity for patients to choose other attributes - lactose-free, capsule or tablet, etc.
Your thoughts are good, as always Helvella..... yet when we take account of the lack of medical education re nutrition, we face another problem that will affect what a medic thinks, never mind knows, the patient needs.
we watched a documentary recently that said we could get our B12 from veg if it wasn’t so clean, apparently it’s in the soil. So getting it from animals is third party, they pick it up from the soil then digest it then we eat them. Might have been Countryfile 🤷🏽♀️ can’t remember. Need to buy/harvest muddy veg 🌱
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That's why regular endoscopic screening & nutrient testing is advised. 
I am in a quandary about B12 - Igennus Super B complex
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