http://www.healthsentinel.com/news.php?event=news_print_list_item&id=859
Alison McCook, "Hold that shot - oral B12 works too", Reuters, May 24,
2005,
Link:
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=healthNews&storyID=8590201
Oral supplements of vitamin B12 appear to correct vitamin B12
deficiencies as well as B12 injections, according to study findings
released Monday.
However, the group of European researchers found that, in order to
correct a deficiency, oral doses need to contain more than 200 times
the recommended daily allowance (RDA) of vitamin B12.
Study author Dr. Lisette C. P. G. M. de Groot of Wageningen University
in the Netherlands explained that most people develop vitamin B12
deficiencies as a result of "malabsorption," in which their bodies
become unable to extract vitamin B12 from food.
The deficiency typically strikes older people, she added, and takes
years to develop. In some instances, people who avoid animal products
-- such as vegans and followers of a macrobiotic diet -- can also
develop a deficiency in vitamin B12 as a result of not eating enough
B12-rich foods, de Groot noted.
A vitamin B12 deficiency is typically treated by monthly, often
painful, shots, de Groot and her colleagues, including Simone J. P. M.
Eussen, report in the Archives of Internal Medicine.
To investigate whether an oral dose of vitamin B12 works, as well, they
tested various daily doses of oral vitamin B12 supplements in 120
people aged 70 and older.
They found that daily oral doses of 647 to 1032 micrograms of vitamin
B12 appeared to correct the deficiency. The current RDA for vitamin B12
is 3 micrograms per day.
Despite the massive doses needed, oral medicine has the advantage of
being easy to administer and painless, de Groot told Reuters Health. No
side effects have been reported, she added.
SOURCE: Archives of Internal Medicine, May 23, 2005.