View clinical trials related to Vitamin B12 Deficiency.
Filter by:This study was designed to determine whether elderly residents of long term care facilitated who had been taking proton pump inhibitors (PPI) for more than 12 months were more likely to have vitamin B12 deficiency than residents not taking PPI, and whether cyanocobalamin nasal spray improved these subjects' vitamin B12 status.
We hope to learn the clinical and functional signs of sub-clinical vitamin B12 deficiency and its response to supplementation in non-anemic, non-pregnant, and non-lactating women in Rural Mexico. Vitamin B12 is important in hematopoiesis, neuro-cognitive functions and genetic integrity. However vitamin B12 is only found in animal source foods therefore a large segment of the population in developing countries and those practicing vegetarianism are at risk of deficiency of the vitamin. This information will help decide weather supplementation with vitamin B12 is necessary in such populations for public health reasons.
Pernicious anemia develops in 50% of total gastrectomized due to gastric cancer patients. Lack of intrinsic factor, which is secreted by parietal cell from stomach wall causes deficiency of cobalamin, which, in final, causes pernicious anemia. Thus, patients who had undergone total gastrectomy needs to be provided externally with cobalamin. Until now, intramuscular injection of cyanocobalamin has been the choice of treatment for cobalamin deficiency, but it has demerits in that it causes discomfort of coming to the hospital to get an injection, and in its high costs. However, in pernicious anemia in old age and absorption disorder patients, it has been reported that oral administration of cobalamin had effect of elevating serum vitamin B12. Thus, this study was designed to prove the effect of oral administration of vitamin B12 in total gastrectomized patients with cobalamin deficiency.
Background and objective: Plasma cobalamins decrease during pregnancy but it is not fully elucidated how this is reflected in the total and cobalamin saturated transport proteins, transcobalamin (total TC, holoTC) and haptocorrin (total HC, holoHC). TC transports cobalamin into the cells. The function of HC is unknown, but in contrast to TC it binds both cobalamins and cobalamin analogues. Design and methods: Healthy pregnant women (N=141) had blood samples drawn at 18th, 32nd, 39th gestation week and 8 weeks postpartum. The protein moiety of TC and HC (total and holo) was measured by in-house ELISA methods.
The clinical consequences of vitamin B12 deficiency include megaloblastic anemia and neurological disorders. Therefore, a proper and timely diagnosis and treatment is important. The use of sensitive biochemical markers such as methylmalonic acid for the diagnosis of vitamin B12 deficiency have increased since the 1980s. Consequently, the number of individuals treated with vitamin B12 has increased significantly. The objective of this project is to study the actual need for vitamin B12 injections in the group of individuals who have already started treatment. In order to investigate this, the investigators stop vitamin B12 treatment in this group, and look for signs of vitamin B12 deficiency by monitoring changes in biochemical and hematological markers. Furthermore, they will test if the individuals are able to absorb a physiological dose of vitamin B12 using a recently developed absorption test (CobaSorb). If a physiological dose can be absorbed, the vitamin B12 injections can be replaced with tablets. In the end, the investigators hope to be able to divide the patients into three groups: 1. need life long injections with vitamin B12, 2. only need supplementations with a small dose of oral vitamin B12, and 3. no need for further vitamin B12 treatment. The perspective is that the new information from this study might be used for a future strategy for vitamin B12 treatment.
Vitamin B12 is an essential nutrient for normal DNA-synthesis and must be supplied by animal products. Vitamin B12 deficiency may cause anemia and irreverible neurological damage. Laboratory tests are used for diagnosis of vitamin B12 deficiency, and following the diagnosis, the cause of the vitamin B12 deficiency has to be clarified. For years a test called Shilling’s test has been used for evaluation of the vitamin B12 absorption. However, the Schilling’s test is no longer easy accessible because of increasing difficulties to obtain the radioactively labeled vitamin B12 requested, and native human intrinsic factor for Schilling’s test II (absorption of vitamin B12 attached to intrinsic factor) is no longer available in most countries. Recently, human intrinsic factor unsaturated with vitamin B12 has been expressed in the plant Arabidopsis thaliana. The purpose of this study was to examine whether recombinant human intrinsic factor is able to promote the uptake of vitamin B12 in patients with evident vitamin B12 deficiency.