blood work done

[kriz]

I don't understand this - I got the results of my blood test today and it's really crappy. It scares me. My homocysteine level is abnormal among some other things that are not right. :eek B12 level is normal, though. I should make sure I get my other B's as well including folic acid. Oh, man, I feel bad right know. I never had this type of results before.

[veganmike]

Can you type in the results?

[Hasha]

Yeah, Kriz, do post your results. I don't imagine that I'll be able to help you much, but there are some health gurus on this forum and I imagine they'll be able to help.

[kriz]

I would like to but some levels are not listed, it only says 'abnormal.' So, I don't have all the numbers. It's so strange because I feel healthier than ever, but the paper show differently....Well, my cholestrol level is 158 (it did show those numbers) and that's very good at least. I've been a strict vegetarian for almost 27 years and my blood and urine tests have always been normal, no B12 deficiency, nothing wrong. Thank you so much for your reply. I'm going back to the doctor next week, so I'll see what the heck is going on with me.

[kriz]

Oh, theres one liver enzyme minimally elevated, too....

[Kiva Dancer]

I would like to but some levels are not listed, it only says 'abnormal.' So, I don't have all the numbers. It's so strange because I feel healthier than ever, but the paper show differently....Well, my cholestrol level is 158 (it did show those numbers) and that's very good at least. I've been a strict vegetarian for almost 27 years and my blood and urine tests have always been normal, no B12 deficiency, nothing wrong. Thank you so much for your reply. I'm going back to the doctor next week, so I'll see what the heck is going on with me.

Also, try to press the doctor for real numbers instead of a "normal/abnormal" reading or see if there's another test they can use to measure whatever it was in question. Normal/abnormal tells next to nothing about things.

I also would like to see the full report, even with the normal/abnormal listings.

[harpy]

I wonder if the homocysteine reading could be B12 related even though you aren't showing up as deficient? I gather that the current thinking is that we need to consume more B12 than the RDA, together with adequate folate, to keep homocysteine levels down. (The current RDAs are geared to preventing neural damage, not controlling homocysteine.) That is discussed here: http://www.vegansociety.com/phpws/in...age&PAGE_id=29

I should try not to worry too much in the meantime - I had a borderline high cholesterol reading a while ago and got into a right state about that, but it turned out to be nothing too serious and I have got it back down now. They don't routinely test for homocysteine over here, unfortunately.

Good luck.

[Korn]

I gather that the current thinking is that we need to consume more B12 than the RDA, together with adequate folate, to keep homocysteine levels down. (The current RDAs are geared to preventing neural damage, not controlling homocysteine.)

That's the current The Vegan Society-thinking. There are many issues that are being discussed outside TVS...:

What about the all the health problems people with high B12 intake has (meat eaters!) - could these be related to the high B12 intake?
If high homocysteine levels are a side effect of a health problem, are they sure that treating the symptom will cure the problem?
There are many other ways to affect your homocysteine levels than eating B12 (and folate)- maybe these need more focus?
Are we sure that the B12-needs that are valid for meat eaters, including those living on junk food, are valid for healthy vegans?
Why do vegans and vegetarians, who normally have lower B12 levels than meat eaters, often show up as 'winners' in studies about diet and heart diseases?
This is really sad to admit, but I don't trust The Vegan Society approach to the B12 issue at all. After having discussed only a few of the issues related to B12, health and the vegan diet, and focused on the issue with B12 analogies that exists in plants, they recommend that vegans should eat fortified foods, which also contains B12 analogues.

They want to represent the vegan movement, but claim that the only vegan reliable source of B12 are foods fortified with B12. But only around maybe 0.1% of of all plant species have been tested for their B12 levels, most of them have not been tested while they are fresh or grown without being exposed to B12-killers like chlorinated water, and a normal way of testing plants for B12 is to cook them first, which we know kills B12. How can they know that the only reliable B12 source is fortified food? Have they ever performed any research on fresh, organic produce? Have they looked at tests made on plants that are not cooked? And why do refuse to discuss that Dr. Victor Herbert found that 'a significant percentage of the activity in B-12 enriched foods are inactive analogs'?

You might have low levels of B12 even before you consider going vegan. Not only that, but it's very likely that this is the situation. B12 analogues might - or might not - be an important problem. Let's say it is. Let's say that you are one of the 39% of all people who have low B12 levels before you go vegan. You read that eating B12 enriched food is a reliable solution on the Vegan Society-site. B12 fortified food contains a significant percentage of B12 analogues.

What is the most likely outcome? If the existence of B12 analogues is a problem, your B12 levels will most likely become lower. Lower than it already is, which is low. This is not my definition of sound advice.

In other discussions about whether or not B12 analogues reallyis a problem, you might have read that healthy people can eat both true B12 and inactive analogues, and still absorb what they need. You might also have heard of experiments where people consumed a mix of 95% of inactive B12 analogues and 5% showed that even with all these B12 analogues involved, the mixture cured B12 deficiency. So maybe B12 analogues aren't so troublesome as The Vegan Society and their preferred sources suggest? Maybe eating B12 fortified food isn't so problematic either? Maybe not... but if the bottom line is that the existence of B12 analogues in multivitamins, animal based foods or B12 fortified food is OK, why do the same people who suggest that 'all' plants, after having read more or less reliable studies made on only a few of them, are NOT reliable B12 sources, because the B12 they (also) contain B12 analogues?

There are various definitions of 'abnormal' homocysteine levels. I just read somewhere that levels between 15-20 are considered high, but not abnormal. Other have lower thresholds. It is fully possible to have OK B12 levels and high homocysteine (hcy) levels, as your results also shows, Kriz. It is also true that B12 is known to raise hcy levels. But there are so many elements that affects our B12 and levels (besides our B12 intake), and some people might need a lot less (or more) b12 than others. Maybe you have been really low in B12 earlier, and that the levels are moving upwards, and/or maybe you consume a lot of inactive B12 analogues that are not able to improve your homocysteine levels. Maybe there are other issues that influence your hcy levels? Or maybe you really are low in B12, and have been for a while, and need a real B12 boost to deal with your hcy levels? Maybe even improving your hcy levels alone only will treat a symptom, and not do anything with the situation behind the symptom... My humble suggestion is to read a little about homocysteine (there are some books on amazon.com), and remember that if you have been on a vegan diet for 27 years and not have taken any kind of B12 supplements, there's a great chance that you have had periods with much lower B12 levels than we 'are meant to have', because of all the elements in food, water and air that reduce B12.

Have you done anything to increase your B12 levels in your 27 years on a vegan diet? Taken multi-vitamins or been eating B12 fortified food?

Some of the same issues that cause B12 deficiency, also cause higher homocysteine levels. But the lists (of 'B12-reducers' and 'hcy-increasers') may not be identical. So maybe your natural B12 levels are low due to nitrous oxide from cars, poor soil, sugar, mercury from amalgam and chlorinated water, maybe the same elements also increase your hcy levels, and maybe taking B12 supplements can increase your B12 levels, but not repair your hcy levels.

The link between heart disease and homocysteine has been known since 1962, but we still know very little about the complexity of this issue. High homocysteine is ie. linked to repressed emotions, but will eating pills in order to 'get the homocysteine levels right' solve the real problem? Not in my book - but that doesn't mean that some people, is some situations, might need pills or acute treatment. But your situations is a tricky one; it could be the result both of having taken too little or too much supplements/fortified food. Sorry for being confusing....

[PinkFluffyCloud]

Korn - that is so interesting, I never realised that they COOKED plants before testing them for B12 - how amazingly ludicrous!! It's bothered me for ages, how do plant-eating animals do so well, there must be B12 in plants, or maybe we just don't need as much as we think we do - or have been told that we do????

[PinkFluffyCloud]

Also, synthetic vitamins/supplements really bother me. I used to pop a whole cocktail of vitamins and supplements because I was always reading about some'new' thing which would make me more alert/less depressed/able to do cartwheels on the ceiling, etc, but I feel quite wary of them these days. Surely a wholesome diet and a peacful, low-stress lifestyle are the most vital ingredients we need? (Not sure how to acheive the last one, though!).

[Korn]

Korn - that is so interesting, I never realised that they COOKED plants before testing them for B12 - how amazingly ludicrous!! It's bothered me for ages, how do plant-eating animals do so well, there must be B12 in plants, or maybe we just don't need as much as we think we do - or have been told that we do????

I don't know how many tests that are done in this way, but I have checked how labs in three different European countries that measure nutrients in food does it, and learned that the method they all used, involved warming up the plants to way above 100 degrees Celcius. 'Cooking' might actually be the wrong word, I should rather use 'heating' since I don't know if they are actually cooked. But as we know, heating kills B12. So - how can they know how much of the B12 that is lost in the heating process if they have no way of measuring the levels in the plant before it has gone through that process?

When I asked them about testing plants, they were more than willing to do it (if I paid for it, of course), and told me how I could send the plants to them. I realized that it would take several days from I plucked a ie. a vegetable until they actually performed the tests. I reminded them that B12 is destroyed by exposure to light, and that what I wanted was to find out which B12 levels the plants had when they were fresh. I asked if it was normal to take these things into consideration when they tested food for B12, and they all went 'Errr........ no.......'.

Most people don't eat much fresh food. Most people also eat a lot of cooked/baked/frozen/microwaved food. Even if there would be a lot of proof that fresh, organic, non-cooked food would contain enough B12, we would still need to relate to the fact that most people live as they do.

I still find it strange that people who consider themselves vegan claim that 'the only vegan food with reliable amounts of B12 vegan food is food that has been fortified with B12', without mentioning that the real truth most likely is that plants as such is not the problem, - the way we live - and the way we treat these plants - is.

[kriz]

Wow! All this information is so interesting! And I'm so grateful for everything posted - very, very helpful. Thanks. Before going vegan, I was not really nutritionally aware and I ate pretty much what I thought was healthy, without any particular knowledge about what I was doing (I did take multivitamins and omega-3 supplements, though.) So being B-12 deficient long before going vegan is very much a possibility. Eventhough my blood work was always OK, does not mean that there was no deficiency. On the other hand, most of my meat eating female friends have had anemia at one point, but I never had that problem as a strict vegetarian (ate a little cheese..). Other factors could also be that I have my mouth full of amalgam, drink filtered tap water and coffe. I also have my share of repressed emotions (Thanks, I didn't know this one, either, Korn!).

Another possibility, is that there's something even more serious going on with me which may have very little to do with my nutrition. What if my tests are just symptoms of a disease?... "A minimally elevated liver enzyme" does not sound good. Anyhow, I've been eating much healthier this last year, and I'm much more conscious about combining food to make sure I get what I need. So, I'm rather suspicious about my results now.....it really worries me that there might be something else. I'll try to think positive until my next appointment....

[kriz]

I'm having a liver test next week. And my health insurance is running out at the end of the month....Everything is just great.

[kriz]

An update: I went back to the doctor this week and she showed me the real numbers of my tests...Well, there was not much to worry about, the abnormalties were so minimal that most other labs would consider them normal according to her. My homocysteine level showed abnormal because it was very low, 4.85. And that's a good thing!! I did another liver test just to be on the safer side, but she said it's probably nothing wrong, it's only routine for her to do that even when there's no real cause for concern. It's good to be thorough as a doctor. I just got so scared not seeing any test numbers for weeks. Anyway, I'm confident that there's nothing wrong with my nutrition as I really do everything (well, let's say, almost everything..) in the book to stay healthy. I've learned a lot from this forum..

[Kiva Dancer]

Wow. So glad that things are not as bad as all that. That's really great news.

FWIW, I learn tonnes here, too. So much sometimes that it takes me 5-6 readings of a post to fit it all in my brain.

Too bad I don't get college credit for reading VF. I would have graduated a million times over by now.

[eve]

good on ya kriz!

[kriz]

Thank you, kiva and eve. I must admit...I'm a VF addict.