Learn All About The Importance Of Vitamin B12
Learn all about the importance of vitamin B12 for your physical and mental health.
The specificity of vitamin B12 is that it is not synthesized by plants or animals, but only by certain bacteria.
Foods high in vitamin B12 can, however, include a variety of potentially hazardous substances (such as the liver of animals raised for food and treated with drugs and antibiotics).
A significant quantity of stomach acid is also necessary for optimal vitamin B12 absorption, and it is believed that the body absorbs only around 1% of total B12 consumption. This is why elderly adults generally have insufficient amounts of this vitamin due to a lack of stomach acid required for absorption.
Vitamin B12 function
The term cobalamin comes from the fact that vitamin B12 is essentially a cobalt molecule.
Vitamin B12 is required for the conversion of homocysteine to methionine as well as the protection of DNA and RNA. Vitamin B12 boosts energy, protects nerve and brain cells, boosts serotonin synthesis, helps make red blood cells, boosts the immune system, and keeps you in a good mood.
Symptoms of vitamin B12 deficiency
Indications of B12 deficiency are divided into several groups of symptoms:
Neurological symptoms - weakness in the legs, arms, and torso, balance and movement problems, visual disturbances, numbness, tingling, tingling, muscle cramps, loss of taste/smell, slow reflexes, inability to control urination or stool, impotence, and depression.
Psychiatric symptoms - lethargy, irritability, paranoia, mania, hallucinations, violent behavior, psychosis, personality change, and postpartum depression/psychosis.
Hematological symptoms - anemia, leukopenia, thrombocytopenia, abnormally low reticulocyte counts, hypersegmented neutrophils, anisocytosis (erythrocyte size disorders), poikilocytosis (erythrocyte shape disorders), pancytopenia (decreased values of all three blood vessels in the blood).
Other symptoms include fatigue, general weakness, lack of energy, pallor, weight loss, dizziness, orthostatic hypotension, fainting, falls, tinnitus, difficulty breathing during exercise, tachycardia, hepatomegaly, splenomegaly, loss of appetite, anorexia, constipation, diarrhea, and premature gray hair.
Developmental delay, apathy, irritability, hypotonia, weakness, tremors, uncontrolled movements, convulsions, ataxia (lack of coordination of voluntary muscle movements), anorexia, slow growth, slow weight gain, slow head growth, lag in socialization, poor motor skills, lagging in language skills, speech problems, lower IQ, mental retardation, anemia are some of the symptoms of deficiency in infants and children.
Recommended daily doses of vitamin B12
According to the Croatian Dietary Supplement Ordinance, the recommended daily intake of vitamin B12 in dietary supplements for adults is 2.5 g, with a maximum of 9 g, and 3.5 and 4 g for pregnant and nursing women. Those who have trouble absorbing vitamin B12 should be aware that they will need to consume significantly more of this vitamin for their bodies to absorb the needed quantity. It is not straightforward to calculate that if the body absorbs only a few percent of the recommended daily amount, a substantially larger daily intake is required than allowed by rules.
The worry of probable hypervitaminosis cannot justify such a modest daily dosage because vitamin B12 is soluble in water and eliminated in the urine, therefore there is no risk of overdosing. As a result, respectable specialists propose increasing the recommended daily consumption by 400 grams, with many recommending even 1000 grams per day, which poses no health risk and can avoid major diseases while saving a lot of money on treatment.
