Vitamin B12 deficiency is one of the most common.
According to the CDC, most individuals who develop a vitamin B12 deficiency have an underlying stomach or intestinal disorder that limits the absorption of vitamin B12. Often the only symptom of these intestinal disorders is anemia resulting from B12 deficiency. It is also common in individuals with dietary patterns that exclude animal or fortified foods.

What is vitamin B12 and where is it found?
vitamin B12 is also called cobalamin. It is crucial in the maintenance of healthy red blood cells and nerve cells and is also necessary for the production of DNA. Vitamin B12 is found bound to the protein molecules in food which is released by hydrochloric acid in the stomach during digestion. After being released, B12 combines with a substance called intrinsic factor (IF) before it is absorbed into the bloodstream. vitamin B12 is most plentiful in animal protein including poultry, fish, meat, milk products, and eggs,

What are the symptoms of vitamin B12 deficiency?
vitamin B12 deficiency is manifested by fatigue, nausea, constipation, flatulence (gas), loss of appetite, and excessive weight loss. Other common symptoms are a difficulty in maintaining balance, depression, confusion, poor memory, and soreness of the mouth or tongue. Deficiency also can lead to neurological changes such as numbness and tingling in the hands and feet. Some of these symptoms can also result from a variety of medical conditions other than vitamin B12 deficiency. so be sure and have a physician evaluate these symptoms so that appropriate medical care can be given.

Who may need a vitamin B12 supplement to prevent a deficiency?
Pernicious anemia is a form of anemia that occurs when there is an absence of intrinsic factor, a substance normally present in the stomach. vitamin B12 binds with intrinsic factor before it is absorbed and used by your body. An absence of intrinsic factor prevents normal absorption of B12 and results in pernicious anemia. Anyone with pernicious anemia usually needs intramuscular (IM) injections (shots) of vitamin B12. It is very important to remember that pernicious anemia is a chronic condition that should be monitored by a physician. Anyone with pernicious anemia has to take lifelong supplemental vitamin B12.

Individuals with stomach and small intestinal disorders may not absorb enough vitamin B12 from food to maintain healthy body stores. Sprue and celiac disease are intestinal disorders caused by intolerance to protein in wheat and wheat products. Regional enteritis, localized inflammation of the stomach or small intestine, also results in generalized malabsorption of vitamin B12. Excess bacteria in the stomach and small intestine also can decrease vitamin B12 absorption.

Surgical procedures of the gastrointestinal tract such as surgery to remove all or part of the stomach and even the weight loss procedure of stomach stapling often results in a loss of cells that secrete stomach acid and intrinsic factor. Surgical removal of the distal ileum, a section of the intestines, also can result in the inability to absorb B12. Anyone who has had either of these surgeries usually requires lifelong supplemental B12 to prevent a deficiency.

Folic Acid and vitamin B12 Deficiency
Large amounts of folic acid can hide the damaging effects of vitamin B12 deficiency, so folic acid supplementation should not exceed 1,000 micrograms (mcg) daily. Although folic acid may correct the anemia, it will not correct the vitamin B12 deficiency and permanent nerve damage may result if it is not treated. In people over fifty years, folic acid should not be taken without also taking a vitamin B12 supplement.

Vegens
Vegens must be very careful that they supplement their diet with vitamin B12, because when meats, fish, eggs, and milk products, are taken from the diet, almost no vitamin B12 is available putting them at high risk of developing a vitamin B12 deficiency. After adopting a vegetarian diet, it may take years to deplete normal body stores of vitamin B12 and develop deficiency symptoms.

Senior Citizens
After the age of fifty, ten to thirty percent of people may be unable to absorb vitamin B12 in food, therefore many health care professionals advise these people to take a dietary supplement to get their vitamin B12. Before the intrinsic factor can bind with vitamin B12 and be absorbed by the body it must
be separated from protein in food. Bacterial overgrowth in the stomach and atrophic gastritis, a stomach inflammation, contribute to vitamin B12 deficiency in adults by limiting secretions of stomach acid needed to separate vitamin B12 from protein in food.

Heart disease, homocysteine, and vitamin B12 deficiency.
An amino acid normally found in your blood called homocysteine may be increased by a deficiency of vitamin B12, folate, or vitamin B6. There is evidence that an elevated blood level of homocysteine is an independent risk factor for heart disease and stroke. It is also suggested that high levels of homocysteine may damage coronary arteries or make it easier for blood clotting platelets to clump together and form a clot.

Psychological impairment and vitamin B12 deficiency.
The British Journal of Psychiatry in 1988 (Levitt/ Joffe) published a report about vitamin B12 deficiency causing the psychotic form of depression. After the medical literature was reviewed, it was found that psychotic depression is caused by B12 deficiency more than by any other cause. Psychiatrists often don’t even consider the deficiency and even when they do and order a serum B12 level, they miss it because the lab "normal range" is so low that their patient's B12 level may appear adequate. There is also the often held misconception that the neuropsychiatric effects of vitamin B12 deficiency are always accompanied by a macrocytic anemia, which is seldom the case. The ironic thing is that vitamin B12 supplementation is relatively inexpensive compared to the dehabilitating effects of psychological impairment.

Genetic predispositions and vitamin deficiency.
Although there is obviously genetic predispositions for disease based on any number of factors within families, it should be considered that patterns of eating, diet and malabsorption of nutrients also run in families and that these abnormalities are often curable with a nutritional approach. It has also been demonstrated that nutrition engineering can modify and influence one’s genetic structure.

Vitamin B12 toxicity.
Vitamin B12 has a very low potential for toxicity. The Institute of Medicine states "no adverse effects have been associated with excess vitamin B12 intake from food and supplements." It is recommended that adults over 50 years of age get most of their vitamin B12 from supplements or fortified food because of the high incidence of impaired absorption of B12 from unfortified foods. While many patients have done well on B12 injections, it has been proven that high doses, taken as oral supplements, may be just as effective at maintaining a healthy serum B12 level.

It is important to realize that treating disease by identifying the root cause and then treating it with a natural substance is not only an 'alternative' way of approaching the condition rather than treating it purely symptomatically with medications, but is a far superior method because it actually cures the condition, as long as the missing natural element is then provided. There are also no side effects, and other potential effects of the deficiency are then also prevented, unlike with medications, in which side effects are often as dangerous and life threatening as the disease.

Please take note that this material is intended only as information and should not be used to replace the expertise of medical professionals. When looking for medical help, we believe it best to consult those who practice not only the more conventional methods of medicine, but whose first consideration is the nutritional deficiency aspects of disease and disease treatment.

Following are excerpts from the 2nd Session of the 74th Congressional Record:

“Our physical well-being is more directly dependent upon minerals we take into our system than upon calories or vitamins, or upon precise proportions of starch, protein or carbohydrates we consume.”

“Do you know that most of us today are suffering from certain dangerous diet deficiencies which cannot be remedied until depleted soils from which our food comes are brought into proper mineral balance?”

“The alarming fact is that foods (fruits, vegetables, and grains) now being raised on millions of acres of land that no longer contain enough of certain minerals are starving us-no matter how much of them we eat. No man of today can eat enough fruits and vegetables to supply his system with the minerals he requires for perfect health because his stomach isn’t big enough to hold them.”

The truth is that our foods vary enormously in [nutritional] value, and some of them aren’t worth eating as food ...”

“Laboratory tests prove that the fruits, the vegetables, the grains, the eggs and even the milk and the meats of today are not what they were a few generations ago (which doubtless explains how our forefathers thrived on a selection of foods that would starve us today!)”

“It is bad news to learn from our leading authorities that 99% of the American people are deficient in these minerals, and that a marked deficiency in any one of the more important minerals actually results in disease. Any upset of the balance, any considerable lack of one or another element, however microscopic the body requirement may be, and we sicken, suffer, and shorten our lives.”

“We know that vitamins are complex chemical substances which are indispensable to nutrition, and that each of them is of importance for normal function of some special structure of the body. Disorder and disease result from any vitamin [or mineral] deficiency. It is not commonly realized, however, that vitamins control the body’s appropriation of minerals, and in the absence of minerals they have no function to perform. Lacking vitamins, the system can make some use of minerals, but lacking minerals, vitamins are useless.”