While browsing through the recent articles by Dr Vernon Coleman on his website, I read with interest the one titled “Weak, Tired, Depressed? Are you suffering from low vitamin B12?”
It is reliably estimated that between 3% and 5% of the population are deficient in vitamin B12. Some experts put the figure as high as 10% and it is suggested that at least a fifth of all those over the age of 60 have low vitamin B12. The certainty is that vitamin B12 deficiency is an epidemic.
It is an established fact that individuals who are deficient in vitamin B12 are likely to suffer from a wide range of symptoms with tiredness and dementia being two of the most significant of those symptoms.
So, around the world, how many of the many millions said to be suffering from Alzheimer’s disease are in reality simply vitamin B12 deficient and could be cured with a short course of injections?
Your guess is as good as mine but we have to be talking about several hundred thousand patients in the UK alone. I’d suspect that the real figure is around 500,000.
If I am right that means that Alzheimer’s disease is nowhere near as common as it is said to be and that half a million patients with Alzheimer’s disease could have been cured with a simple two week course of injections.
The symptoms produced by vitamin B12 deficiency are many and varied. Vitamin B12 is absolutely essential for the human body to function properly.
So, why is vitamin B12 deficiency being overlooked?
That’s simple.
There are three simple reasons and one underlying and more complicated reason.
First, most doctors don’t bother to test for vitamin B12 deficiency. There is a cheap and simple blood test available but doctors don’t usually take the trouble to order it. If you don’t test for vitamin B12 deficiency you won’t ever find it.
Second, normal figures vary from laboratory to laboratory. This is lunacy, of course. But it’s what happens. If samples of your blood are sent to two laboratories the chances are that the acceptable ‘normal’ figures will be different.
Third, the laboratories which do the blood tests usually give the wrong ‘normal’ result figures. They have been doing this for years. If a doctor sends a blood sample to a laboratory he will probably be told that a patient is only deficient in vitamin B12 if the result shows a reading of under 180 or so. And that is just plain wrong. It has been reliably established that a patient who has a blood reading of under 350-400 is almost certainly dangerously short of vitamin B12. And the shortage can be remedied with a few very cheap injections of vitamin B12 or a course of sublingual vitamin B12 tablets.
When a patient’s vitamin B12 level is down below 350, they will be quite ill. Indeed, at that point a patient will be showing severe signs of deficiency. But the patient won’t be treated until their vitamin B12 level is down below 180.
In its ‘Cobalamin and Folate Guidelines’, the British Committee for Standards in Haematology says: ‘The clinical picture is the most important factor in assessing the significance of test results assessing cobalamin status since there is no ‘gold standard’ test to define deficiency’.
Many experts now seem to think that symptoms rather than blood levels should be the deciding factor in deciding treatment. A study of the literature shows a clear conclusion that long-term blood levels probably need to be at least 350-400 and that the standard lab figures for vitamin B12 deficiency are far too low.
An article in the British Journal of Haematology in 2014 (‘Guidelines for the diagnosis and treatment of cobalamin and folate disorders’) suggests that doctors should consider treating patients who have vitamin B12 levels in the ‘low-normal’ range rather than the lower figures still being recommended by laboratories.
My conclusion is that it is a tragedy that laboratories persist in recommending 180 as a trigger point for treatment.
“Weak, Tired, Depressed? Are you suffering from low vitamin B12?” – vernoncoleman.com
I’ve not had much faith in the NHS for several years now, so I don’t really find this that surprising to be honest. And it does seem that dementia is being ‘over-diagnosed’, and I do know lots of people who always seem to be complaining about being tired all the time.
Numerous papers in reputable medical journals have established a clear link between vitamin B12 deficiency and psychosis with many reporting that patients with low vitamin B12 may suffer from suicidal thoughts and hallucinations and then be wrongly diagnosed and treated as suffering from schizophrenia.
That’s the bad news.
The good news, of course, is that if patients are given vitamin B12 (usually by a simple, cheap injection) they will get better quickly and their symptoms will be reversed. The injections are given regularly until there is clear improvement in the patient’s symptoms and blood levels need to be monitored regularly.
So, why do doctors not do this simple test? Why are laboratories using the wrong measurements? Why are so many patients being mistreated?
That, I am afraid, takes us to the underlying, complicated reason.
The fact is that the drug companies which control the medical establishment (and which also control much postgraduate medical education and, through their advertising budgets, keep the medical journals alive) know that there is very little profit to be made out of identifying and treating vitamin B12 deficiency. Vitamin supplements and high dose injections are not patented and so they are very cheap. No one makes much money out of them.
I cannot overstress the fact that for many years now the pharmaceutical industry has pretty well owned the medical profession; it has certainly taken out a long lease on the medical establishment. The drug companies control how doctors practice and, most important of all, they control the way that doctors think.
If doctors do not routinely test their patients for vitamin B12 deficiency (and they do not) then a large number of patients who have physical and mental symptoms caused by a shortage of vitamin B12 will be diagnosed as suffering from other conditions – most commonly and most notably Alzheimer’s disease.
I can’t think of a safer medicine with which to treat people. Vitamin B12 is water soluble and any excess is merely excreted in the urine. I haven’t been able to find any evidence of anyone ever dying (or becoming seriously ill) as a result of treatment with vitamin B12. It is that rarest and most wonderful of treatments: a cheap and safe drug.
As I mentioned at the start of this chapter, vitamin B12 deficiency is very common. It affects millions of people. The symptoms of vitamin B12 deficiency vary from patient to patient but include the following: fatigue; weakness, especially in arms and legs; sore tongue; nausea; appetite loss; weight loss; bleeding gums; numbness and tingling in hands and feet; difficulty in maintaining balance; pale lips; pale tongue; pale gums; yellow eyes and skin; shortness of breath; depression; confusion and dementia; headache; poor memory. The first obvious signs of B12 deficiency might be pins and needles or coldness in the hands and feet, fatigue and weakness, poor concentration or even psychosis.
It does seem that ‘big pharma’ wants nothing more but to get as many people diagnosed with dementia and other conditions so they can sell more of their patented drugs and make huge profits.
Finally, Dr Coleman concludes with the following:
Some patients cannot absorb the vitamin (either because of an absence of intrinsic factor in their stomachs or because their small intestines are damaged in some way and cannot absorb it) and some patients are deficient because their diets don’t contain enough of the foods which contain vitamin B12. Since vitamin B12 deficiency is common in those who follow a vegan diet it is likely that the current fashion for veganism will increase the occurrence of vitamin B12 deficiency.
It was certainly a very interesting read, and you can find the whole of that article, as well as numerous others, at vernoncoleman.com
I wanted to find out a bit more though; while I do suffer from tiredness sometimes, I don’t consider myself unhealthy or ill. I did a quick Google search for ‘vitamin B12 foods’ and this was the AI Overview response:
Vitamin B12 is primarily found in foods of animal origin, including meat, fish, poultry, eggs, and dairy products. Some fortified foods, like breakfast cereals and nutritional yeast, also provide vitamin B12.
Here’s a more detailed breakdown:
Excellent sources of Vitamin B12:
- Animal Products: Beef liver, Clams, Oysters, Salmon, Tuna, Sardines, Trout, Eggs, and Dairy products (milk, yogurt, cheese).
- Fortified Foods: Many breakfast cereals, nutritional yeasts, and fortified plant-based milks.
Other good sources:
- Red Meat: Beef, lamb, pork.
- Poultry: Chicken, Turkey.
- Seafood: Various fish like cod, mackerel, and shellfish like crabs.
Why these foods are good sources:
- Animal-Based: Vitamin B12 is naturally produced by bacteria that live in the gut of animals. When these animals (or their byproducts like milk or eggs) are consumed, the vitamin is transferred to humans.
Fortification:
Some food manufacturers add vitamin B12 to their products, making them accessible to vegetarians and vegans who might not otherwise get enough from their diet.
https://www.google.com/search?q=vitamin+b12+foods
OK well I do eat plenty of the above, so it’s probably fair to assume that I’m not suffering from any Vitamin B12 deficiency, so that’s good news.
What I do find curious is that many of the “excellent” and “good” sources of Vitamin B12, such as meat and dairy products, are those that we are being subtly ‘encouraged’ to eat less of, because of ‘climate change’ – you know, the usual bollocks.
And veganism is also widely promoted now – while I respect anyone’s decision to take up vegetarianism or veganism, I don’t appreciate having this forced on anyone, even if it’s seen as being hip or ‘trendy’ now.
I’ve always found it interesting how there are so many plant-based ‘meat substitute’ products on the market that are designed to ‘look’ like meat-based products, such as sausages, burgers and even bacon. What’s even more interesting is how much more expensive these products are, you’d think they’d be much cheaper to produce!
Yes, they may be ‘fortified’ with Vitamin B12, but as with any supplements, I bet they’re not quite the same as the ‘real thing’.
So in order to save the planet and fight ‘climate change’, we’re being asked to give up foods that are good for us. And in exchange, we become more depressed, tired and mentally confused.
But that’s fine, because then Big Pharma can pump us full of expensive drugs that we don’t really need.
The pharmaceutical industry exists to make people sick and ill, that’s the only way they can profit from selling their drugs at inflated mark-ups.
It’s surely no coincidence that pharmaceutical, pharmacy etc all drive from the Greek φαρμάκι which translates to ‘poison’.
