Re: B12 deficiency: case stories wanted
Of course vegans can get a B12 deficiency. Circa one in ten vegans would become B12 deficient even if we had the same levels as non-vegans, and B12 is commonly thought to be *the* nutrient to pay attention to and supplement with for veg*ns. Most people probably know, by know, that the B12 deficiency risk is much higher for vegans than for meat eaters, for a number of reasons. Non-vegans have other nutrients to focus on and supplement with (eg B9). But this raw (half raw?) food women may not have been a vegan or vegetarian by choice, it seems that she may have been raised as a veg*n and not actively chosen a veg*n lifestyle herself - which could explain why she switches to eating animal product every day as a way to deal with B12 deficiency instead of choosing other, animal-friendly and more efficient options.
It's interesting that she developed a deficiency even when taking oral supplements for circa a decade (she had been a vegan for 4 years and a vegetarian for 23). If I understand this right, before her 10 years of taking supplements she was a vegetarian for 17 years without supplements (and in good health).
Oral B12 vs. injected B12 is being discussed here: Is oral B12 as effective as intramuscular injections?
It's kind hard to discuss with statements a la "There is no vegetarian sources of B12" on YouTube. Although there's generally a higher rate of B12 analogues in plant products than in animal products, and lower levels (if any at all) in lots of plant products, several scientific sources who are fully aware of B12 analogues will disagree with her. (See eg this post in the thread about long time, non-supplementing vegans).
She claims things without any source references (pretty common on YouTube, and unfortunately also pretty common among many, but not all, rawfooders).
There's no need for a vegan with no atypical conditions to eat animal products to increase their B12 levels. The way she presents this (to people without her special heart condition), she sounds like a person who suggest that people should rather eat animal products than to supplement when needed. In an emergency situation with a severe deficiency it would be better to treat the deficiency first with an intense treatment, and go back to simple, oral supplements afterwards instead of a slow process with getting non-therapeutic amounts from food.
She is a 'health first' person, but why doesn't she mention the issues involved in high B12 intakes (look eg. here and here, and also look here, because many of these cases could be linked to high B12 levels as well, as explained elsewhere)? I don't know this woman, but if I did, I'd ask if she 100% sure that she wants to be in the upper end of normal range for meat eaters. Is she even aware of the heath risks associated with eating animal products?
People with problems absorbing B12 usually absorb B12 it better from supplements than from food (google R-binder and intrinsic factor for more), so her story is atypical. It's also commonly thought that people who really need to fix their B12 levels are better off with B12 better from injections than from food as well, but due to her special heart condition she wanted to avoid those. If I would have any symptoms of a deficiency, I'd take therapeutic amounts in one way or the other ASAP, and not rely on food alone, let alone animal foods, which by the way are known for having higher levels of B12 but/and which also are associated with lots of other health problems.
It's kind of strange if a person who seems to be an active advocate for a particular diet have been lots of years without meat before she finds out that her B12 levels are below the normal range (if that's what has happened). To me it seems as if the oral supplements she have been taking haven't been good enough; there could even be a problem of taking B12 in a multivitamin with copper etc, or the amounts of B12 weren't high enough for her needs - or they could contain inactive B12 analogues eg. from spirulina.
The way she compares the recommended levels is also a bit strange: she compares USA with Japan - without mentioning that Japan is the or one of the very few nations on this planet with much higher B12 recommendations than the rest of the world.
She should have mentioned if this was pmol pr pg/ml. According to this link, "The normal blood level of vitamin B12 ranges between 200 and 600 picogram/milliliter (148-443 picomol/liter)".According to this link, "Normal values are 200 - 900 pg/mL (picograms per milliliter)."
She may sum her approach up pretty well up when she says (the underlined part): "The optimal levels, I would say, would be, I don't know, somewhere between 700 and 1000".
Including a generous amount of raw food is a IMHO good idea, but for some reason, some rawfooders can be quite preachy and demonstrate that they haven't really done much research about what their preaching about at the same time. But - after all - that could be a good sign, in the sense that they at least are very enthusiastic about the diet they live on. But what this woman promotes is a rather dangerous path: if people have a severe deficiency, with pretty bad symptoms, nobody should recommend that they something which may be understood as a suggestion that just eating the kind of food most people eat will cure it. Severe B12 deficiency can cause permanent damage, a severe deficiency with pretty bad symptoms can't be treated with eggs and fish, injections or strong oral supplements is important to recommend in such cases.
Her levels went from 86 to 376 in over some months, but if we exclude any special conditions this woman has, taking B12 from oral supplements, would have been a faster and more efficient/reliable solution for most people, vegan or not. It is estimated that 9% of all (non-vegans) have an actual B12 deficiency, and not only "low levels". With the same numbers among vegans we could have almost 1000 B12 deficient members among our almost 11,000 forum members alone. That's important to know, especially since B12 is more prevalent among vegans than non-vegans. But to make this kind video, which almost is evangelizing for use of animal products - when we know the many reasons why a) people may become B12 deficient, and b) know the actual reasons why vegans are more likely to get a B12 deficiency just doesn't make any sense. (Making videos meaning that it takes 10 minutes to go through something one could read in much shorter time doesn't always make sense anyway!).
OTOH, if she, in her other hundreds of videos, has promoted the idea that rawfooders don't need supplements, she may feel a need to correct herself on YouTube. She could be a victim of the 'just don't wash your vegetables and you're safe'-myth; a dangerous theory to promote to a women like her, who has been a veg*n most of her life. I guess any active "YouTube-activist" (she even seems to have site called "Radiant Health") who gets really sick will feel a need to - and should - correct misleading info they may have posted. She just doesn't do it in a very scientific way, instead she promotes... more misleading info! Then again, If I would have made hundreds of videos about 'raw health' and start to eat cooked animal products, I'd probably feel a need to explain a little something as well.
She gives the false impression that she, with her raw vegan background, have to eat cooked animal products to become healthy, a theory practically nobody will support. And - if one should evaluate raw vegan food as such, along with her B12 levels, one would have to look at what she consumed anyway. Did she eat/make proper food? What about her previous intake of B12 enemies like sugar, coffee and tobacco in her years as a veg*n... and so on. And by the way, (I looked at part of one of her other videos)... someone should tell her that B12 comes from bacteria+cobalt, not from animal product as such.
Luckily don't all non-vegans with health problems don't make a video (or 4-5, like this ex-raw woman did!) about their problems on YouTube. That would have represented massive server overloads...
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