OBJECTIVE(S) Incidence of neurocognitive and psychological disorders may be related to serum homocystein (Hcy), cobalamin (vitamin B12) and folate levels in old people. The aim of this study was to assess the relation between Hcy, cobalamin, folate and neurocognitive and/or psychological disorders in the elderly. MATERIALS AND METHODS In this cross-sectional study, 280 subjects with ≥ 65 year...

also see Table 2 in the online Data Supplement). In HRT users, we found no significant differences in serum cobalamin or in plasma holoTC, MMA, and tHcy compared with controls. To our knowledge, there are currently no published data on the effects of HRT on plasma holoTC, and studies on serum cobalamin have not established a clear pattern (4, 5). We observed that HRT use decreased the risk of h...

BACKGROUND Population-based data on the prevalence of cobalamin and folate deficiency in India are lacking. OBJECTIVE The objective was to measure the prevalence of cobalamin and folate deficiency among children aged 6-30 mo residing in a low-to-middle income community in North India. DESIGN Children aged 6-30 mo (n = 2482) were identified through a community survey in a low-to-middle socio...

Compromised cobalamin status during pregnancy may put both mother and child at risk of deficiency during lactation and subsequent development. We investigated whether changes in cobalamin status during pregnancy are associated with impaired status in the mother and the cord. Plasma cobalamin, methylmalonic acid (MMA), and holotranscobalamin (holoTC) concentrations were determined in 92 women at...

We report the identification of a new locus, designated cobC, involved in the assembly of the nucleotide loop of cobalamin in Salmonella typhimurium. The cobC gene has been mapped, cloned, and sequenced. DNA sequence analysis suggested that cobC is divergently transcribed from the adjacent cobD gene and suggests that the regulatory region of these genes overlap. The cobC gene codes for a predic...

BACKGROUND Cobalamin/folate deficiency in elderly subjects may lead to psychiatric symptoms, but more often it increases the severity of various organic and nonorganic mental diseases. A major clinical problem, however, is the uncertainty and controversy concerning biochemical markers of cobalamin/folate deficiency to be used in the diagnostic evaluation of suspected cobalamin/folate deficiency...

Cobalamin deficiency is common in patients with Crohn's disease (CD). Intramuscular cobalamin continues to be the standard therapy for the deficiency and maintenance treatment in these patients, although oral route has been demonstrated to be effective in other pathologies with impaired absorption. Our aims were to evaluate the efficacy of oral therapy in the treatment of cobalamin deficiency a...

Methylmalonic acid (MMA) accumulates in the body in cases of cobalamin (vitamin B12) deficiency because of impaired metabolization of methylmalonyl CoA to succinyl CoA by methylmalonyl CoA-mutase, a cobalamin-dependent enzyme. Therefore, MMA represents a functional marker of cobalamin deficiency (1). It is widely accepted that MMA measurement is useful and necessary if serum cobalamin concentra...

A patient presented at the age of 77 yr with a low serum cobalamin level. Subsequent study showed that he had persistently very low R binder (TC I) cobalamin-binding capacity in serum (less than 5 ng/liter versus 213 +/- 171 ng/liter in normal controls), and that almost all of his endogenous serum cobalamin was carried by TC II instead of TC I. His saliva also demonstrated virtually undetectabl...

In the three domains of life, vitamin B12 (cobalamin) is primarily used in methyltransferase and isomerase reactions. The methyltransferase complex MtrA-H of methanogenic archaea has a key function in energy conservation by catalysing the methyl transfer from methyl-tetrahydromethanopterin to coenzyme M and its coupling with sodium-ion translocation. The cobalamin-binding subunit MtrA is not ho...