b12 and raw foodists

[cedarblue]

was chatting today at our local vegan group lunch and the topic strayed to b12 (as it does!).

a few people were talking about d12 deficiencies and how to spot it etc and one woman said she knew someone who was a raw foodist who got b12 deficiency. he could tell as he started getting tingling in his hands and fingers.
this then prompted a discussion on supplementation.

a woman who is a herbalist said she had read that among omni's, veggies and vegans the ones most likely not to suffer from deficiency are the veggies as they intake some dairy.

then there was a horror story about a person who was an omni raw foodist !!! , who died of a parasitic infection through eating raw meat and fish


apparently it can take many years for a deficiency to build up and psysically show its self.

anyone any opinions or info on this area?

thanks

[Melina]

Hey Cedarblue, LOVE your pic! Johnny is SOOOO HOT!
Don't really have much to say, just that I was really grossed out by that omni raw foodist story! YUCK!
I read that it can take like 20 years for a b12 deficiency to start presenting any symptoms. I'm taking my supplements!

[kokopelli]

A friend of mine who's vegetarian had to have numerous operations on her intestines last year, due to adhesions from when she had a caesarean years ago. It was taking her a long time to fully recover, and she just felt constantly tired, months after the last operation. Now she's been told she's got pernicious anaemia because her intestine is no longer capable of absorbing B12 from her food, because it's been messed around with so much. So she has to have B12 injections every 3 months for the rest of her life. But it only took about 6 months or so, less than a year anyway, for her to experience the symptoms of deficiency, namely constant tiredness and lack of energy. But I suppose it had a more sudden onset for her, because she actually wasn't absorbing any B12 at all, it wasn't just a question of not having an adequate amount from day to day.

[Korn]

There are stories about vegans who don't develop any signs of B12 deficiency for even more than 20 years.... The problem is that you never know if you are one of those who can do well with supplements for many years or one of them who are B12 deficient when you go vegan - without taking a test.

I heard a story about a vegan who got his first signs of B12 deficiency around 75, after having been vegan for 35 years, at the age of 75. Of course, most doctors who gets a visit from a guy who says he's vegan and shows up to be B12 deficient, will blame it on his diet, and 'forget' that B12 deficiency is very common among people who are 75; low B12 levels are pretty common among meat eaters that are young also.

Omnis normally have higher B12 levels that lacto-vegetarians, and vegans normally have lower levels than lacto-vegetarians. It seems likely that vegan raw-foodists have better B12-levels than other vegans, since cooking destroys B12.

[foxytina_69]

why is it that apparently many vegans have low b12, when there are so many foods fortified with b12?

[Korn]

It could be because many vegans don't eat B12 fortified food (here in Norway you can't even but B12 fortified food), and also that getting 'enough' B12 isn't always enough. For some people who need B12, fortified food may be a good solution, for others it may not.

[foxytina_69]

why wouldnt getting 'enough' b12 be enough?

i eat alot soy milk products, nutritional yeast (too much sometimes) and take a multivitamin everyday. i hope these things are enough to prevent a b12 deficiency in the future.

[Korn]

'Why wouldn't getting 'enough' b12 be enough?' Because a person's lifestyle/other things he consume (sugar, coffee, tobacco etc etc etc) may destroy the B12 he consumes. Some people - vegans or not - are not even able to absorb B12 from food (maybe around 1% of the population, if I remember right).

Soy milk products contain very little B12, the B12 in soy milk comes from the fortification. It has been found that a significant percentage of the activity in 'B-12 enriched' foods are inactive analogs. Multivitamins may contain B12 analogues, which may be a problem. Especially of a person is physically out of balance, the functions that is said to distinguish between true B12 and B12 analogues may not work as they should. In general, there is so much disagreement, so many assumptions and so little research on B12 analogues and the real life effects they have (and also on the effect of 'artificially' raising our homocysteine levels), that the almost only safe thing to say is that we know very little about what is safe and not. There are also many questions associated with too high B12 levels.

All this uncertainty is just as important for non-vegans as it is for vegans, maybe even more, because they have a much higher percentage of some diseases that may be linked to over-consumption of B12.


Some related threads, ('20-90% of the B12 in multivitamin supplements is present as B12 analogues', 'Animal foods contains abundant B12 analogues' and others are merged into this thread.

There is a thread about too high B12 intake here.

[foxytina_69]

thanks korn do you know if nutritional yeast is an okay source for b12?

[Korn]

You don't like blood tests, do you....