Many physicians mistakenly rely on serum B12 levels in the blood to assess vitamin B12 deficiency.
There were Two cases of young individuals, strictly vegetarian, with no known vascular risk factors. One suffered a stroke and the other had several. Why? Probably because they were not taking vitamin B12 supplements, which causes high levels of homocysteine, which can attack our arteries.
So, those eating People who follow a plant-based diet and do not take vitamin B12 supplements may increase their risk of heart disease and stroke. However, as you can see in the graph below and at 0:47 in my video, How to detect functional vitamin B12 deficiencyvegetarians have So many risk factors for heart disease benefits who still have a lower risk overall, but this may help explain why vegetarians were found to have more strokes. This disparity would presumably disappear with adequate vitamin B12 supplementation, and the benefit of a lower risk of heart disease would be even greater.
Compared Compared to non-vegetarians, vegetarians enjoy many other advantages, such as better cholesterol, blood pressure, blood sugar, and obesity rates. But what about the stroke study? Even among the studies that have shown benefits, “the effect was not as pronounced as expected, which may be a result of deficient vitamin B12 status due to a vegetarian diet. Vitamin B12 deficiency may negate the cardiovascular disease prevention benefits of vegetarian diets. To further reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease, vegetarians should be advised to use vitamin B12 supplements.”
How can you? determine Your vitamin B12 status? By the time you have symptoms of vitamin B12 deficiency, it will be too late. And, at first, the symptoms may be so subtle that you might even miss them. What’s more, develop Metabolic deficiency of vitamin B12 can be very common long before a clinical deficiency develops, so there is “a missed opportunity to prevent dementia and stroke” when you have enough vitamin B12 to prevent deficiency symptoms but not enough to keep homocysteine under control. “Underdiagnosis of this condition is largely due to a failure to understand that a normal serum concentration [blood level] Vitamin B12 may not reflect adequate functional vitamin B12 status.” Vitamin B12 levels in our blood are not always represent Vitamin B12 levels in our cells. We can have a severe functional deficiency of vitamin B12 even if our blood levels are normal or even high.
“Most doctors tend to assume that if serum B12 is ‘normal,’ there is no problem,” but within the lower normal range, 30 percent of patients may have metabolic B12 deficiency, with high homocysteine levels.
Directly measurement Methylmalonic acid (MMA) or homocysteine levels are a “more accurate reflection of vitamin B12 functional status.” Methylmalonic acid may be checked A simple urine test looks for a value of less than 4 micrograms per milligram of creatinine. “Elevated MMA is a specific marker of vitamin B12 deficiency while Hcy [homocysteine] increases both vitamin B12 and folate deficiency.” Therefore, “metabolic deficiency of B12 is strictly definite by elevated MMA levels or by elevated Hcy in folate-rich individuals,” that is, in those who get enough folate. Even without eating beans and vegetables, which are packed with folate, folic acid is aggregate to the supply of flour by law, so, at present, high levels of homocysteine can mainly be due to a vitamin B12 problem. Ideally, looking for a blood homocysteine level in the single digits.
Measured in this way, “the prevalence of subclinical functional vitamin B12 deficiency is dramatically higher than previously assumed…” We are talking Between 10 and 40 percent of the general population, more than 40 percent of vegetarians and most vegans who are not scrupulous about getting their vitamin B12. Some suggest that those following a plant-based diet should check your vitamin B12 status every year, but it shouldn’t be necessary if you take the right supplements.
There are There are rare cases of vitamin B12 deficiency that cannot be detected with any test, so it is best to make sure you are getting enough.
If you get your homocysteine tested and it is still too high, in the double digits, despite vitamin B12 supplementation and eating beans and vegetables, I have a suggestion for you in the final videos of this series, which we will cover below: Should vegetarians take creatine to normalize homocysteine? and The efficacy and safety of creatine for high homocysteine levels.
How did we get here? To watch the full series if you haven’t already, check out the related posts below.
