BACKGROUND Vitamin B12 deficiency may have deleterious effects on end stage renal disease (ESRD) patients on maintenance hemodialysis, and may increase erythropoietin stimulating agent (ESA) resistance, yet little is known about its prevalence in this population. METHODS Serum vitamin B12 and methylmalonic acid (MMA) levels were drawn from ESRD patients prior to hemodialysis. All patients wit...

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES Vitamin B12 (B12) is essential for well-being and healthy life, since it plays a critical role in DNA synthesis, hematopoiesis and neurologic function. B12 deficiency remains one of the most common nutrition deficiencies in the world and is associated with increasing risk of cardiovascular disease, cancer, mental health problem, osteoporosis, and defect-birth outcomes....

OBJECTIVE To review recent evidence that suggests vitamin B12 is associated with risk reduction for some chronic diseases and birth defects. QUALITY OF EVIDENCE A MEDLINE search from 1999 to 2007 was performed using the key word vitamin B12. The most relevant articles (129) dealt with cardiovascular disease, cancer, mental health, and birth outcomes;most studies presented level II evidence. ...

BACKGROUND The aim of this study is to determine whether B12 replacement would ameliorate cognitive and psychiatric symptoms in elderly subjects with dementia and low serum B12 levels. METHODS A test group (n = 28) of nursing home residents with low serum B12 levels (<250 pg/mL) and a matched comparison group (n = 28) with normal serum B12 levels (>300 pg/mL) were evaluated by blinded raters ...

In human patients with circadian rhythm sleep disorders, chronic administration of a vitamin B12 analog, a-(5,6d imethy lbenz imidazo ly l ) -Co-methy l cobamide (methylcobalamin, methyl-B12), may improve their desynchronized sleep-wake cycles to entrain a 24-h nycthemeral cycle (1-4). However, the central mechanism involved in this phenomenon remains unknown. In an attempt to investigate the m...

Vitamin B12 deficiency is widely prevalent in women of childbearing age, especially in developing countries. In the present study, through dietary restriction, we have established mouse models of severe and moderate vitamin B12 deficiencies to elucidate the impact on body composition, biochemical parameters, and reproductive performance. Female weanling C57BL/6 mice were fed for 4 weeks: (a) co...

Malouf R, Areosa Sastre A. Vitamin B12 for cognition. Cochrane Database Syst Rev 2003;(3):CD004326. [PubMed abstract] 79. Malouf R, Grimley Evans J. Folic acid with or without vitamin B12 for the prevention and treatment of health elderly and demented people. Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2008 Oct 8;(4):CD004514. [PubMed abstract] 80. Lukaski HC. Vitamin and mineral status: effects on physical pe...

difference in low results: t(22) 0.08 (P 0.43). The introduction and enforcement of guidelines produced a dramatic reduction in the number of B12 samples processed, with testing reduced by 70% over the first year. Only 14.3% of the overall reduction was due to rejected samples, indicating that the majority of the reduction was due to compliance with the guidelines by laboratory users. The reduc...

BACKGROUND Older people have a high risk of vitamin B12 deficiency; this can lead to varying degrees of cognitive and neurological impairment. CBL deficiency may present as macrocytic anemia, subacute combined degeneration of the spinal cord, or as neuropathy, but is often asymptomatic in older people. Less is known about subclinical vitamin B12 deficiency and concurrent neuroconduction and cog...

BACKGROUND Low vitamin B12 concentration in South Asian Indians is common, but the exact prevalence is not known. AIM To investigate prevalence and associations of low vitamin B12 concentration and hyperhomocysteinemia in rural and urban Indian men living in and around Pune, Maharashtra. METHOD We studied 441 middle-aged men (149 rural, 142 slum and 150 urban middle-class residents, mean ag...