Talk:Vitamin B12/Archive 1

Untitled
Moved from Talk:Cobalamin: In accordance with WikiProject_Drugs naming policy, I propose we move this page to the INN cyanocobalamin. If you have any concern with this proposal, please discuss it on this page. Matt 00:06, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Swiss cheese???
What is "swiss cheese"? If I were living in Switzerland would all cheese contain this much vitiman B12? Of course not!! Please can Americans who edit these pages understand that what is branded "swiss cheese" in the USA is not available under that name in any other English speaking country. There are a variety of consistent proper names for different cheeses throughout the culinary world that would be correct in this place. Outside of the USA no one has any idea what "swiss cheese" even means. Indeed it would sounds like a typing error. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.237.92.76 (talk) 22:15, 2 March 2012 (UTC)
 * "Swiss" was taken from here, I guess only because the entry contains "pure" cheese and clear weight measure. The content seems comparable for other "types" of cheese, and thus I removed Swiss from the article. The term "Swiss cheese" is indeed much too vague and covers a large variety of brands. Materialscientist (talk) 00:25, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Chemical structure inconsistency?
Hi All, Could someone check the skeletal structure (created by me) and the stick structure by Benjah-bmm27 for the stereochemistry on the carbon next to the phosphate ester? It appears to me to be inconsistent. My source for the structure is KC Nicolaou's Classics in Total Synthesis, so I have reason to believe it is right, but it would be nice to have a structure based on X-ray crystallography to confirm. Ymwang42 (talk) 07:38, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Upon closer inspection, there were numerous other problems with that structure with regards to bond connectivity. I've uploaded a new image of adenosylcobalamin, based on the x-ray structure obtained by Luger and coworkers in J. Phys. Chem A. 2009, 113, 8366. Ymwang42 (talk) 07:21, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Broken Links
All the External Links except Vitamin B-12 deficiency article in American Family Physician journal, and MeSH Cyanocobalamin are broken. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.14.101.79 (talk) 00:56, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

http://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/vitaminb12.asp#h2 NIH Fact sheet link also broken. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.50.228.118 (talk) 17:13, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Reference [18] points to a missing page: http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/DRI//DRI_Thiamin/306-356_150.pdf Maybe the link to that document now is the following: http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/DRI//DRI_Thiamin/vitamin_b12.pdf The following document is more recent (2006 instead of 1998), and contains some of the material: http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/DRI/Essential_Guide/DRIEssentialGuideNutReq.pdf I am not going to edit the Wikipedia article. Mecanoge (talk) 21:35, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

The page should be renamed to B-12
The present name "cyanocobalamin" is misleading, as this substance is not equivalent with vitamin B12 and does not occur in nature. It is not well assimilated by the body. Moreover it is transformed to harmful cyanides when metabolized.

Cyanocobalamin has been the most used drug for supplementing B12, but this is only because it has been the most profitable substance to produce. By using the name Cyanocobalamin for B12 commercial interests are supported at the expense of public health, because Cyanocobalamin is not a good supplement for reasons as follows.

There exists increasing evidence indicating that the use of cyanocobalamine for neurological disorders including Alzheimers diseas is inadequate, because it is not well taken upp by the nervous system. Some researchers have even suggested that a factor in at least in some cases of Alzheimers, is a weak uptake of B12 into the brain circulation. Tragically, some studies using cyanocobalamin for Alzheimer have concluded that B12 is not very effective treatment for Alzheimer, while in reality the reason may have been that the preparation was not taken up by the brain. On the other hand, studies using methylcobalamin for Alzheimer have reported good results. Methylcobalamin is the natural form that is especially useful for the brain.

Actually, the medical use of cyanocobalamin has been questioned by some scientists. S.I. Terry pointed out in the Lancet that an incalculable number of people with neurological disorders due to B12-deficency are put at risk because of the inability of cyanocobalamin to correct the B12 deficiency in the nervous system. (Terry, S.I. et al. "Survival of Cyanocobalmin." The Lancet, October 14, 1978, pg. 848.)

Dr Linnel pointed out that cyanocobalamin has no known biochemical function and needs to be transformed in the body to physiologic cobalamins before it can be used. He concluded that there is no place for the therapeutic usage of cyanocobalamin (Linnell, J.C. et al. "Therapeutic Misuse of Cyanocobalamin". Lancet, November 11, 1978; pg 1053-1054.)

As deficiency in the nervous system is an especially serious complication of vitamin B12 deficiency, a name should not be used that makes people wrongly believe that cyanocobalamin is equivalent with vitamin B12 and therefore an adequate treatment for such serious disorders.

Methylcobalamin is actually the predominant form of B12 in the body as 90% of the active form of B12 in the blood is this molecule. But in the liver, kidney, brain and erythrocyters, adenosylcobalamin (also called dibencozide) is predominant.

So as there are different forms of B12 in the body, it would be sensible and most adequate to use the simple common denominator "vitamin B12".

Finally, the motivation for renaming from B12 to cyanocobalamin was that this was in accordance with Wikipedia:WikiProject_Drugs naming policy. However, B12 is not a drug (but cyanocobalamin is), it is a common denominator for a group of physiological molecules of vital importance for the normal functioning of the body.

CONCLUSION: There are strong reasons why the cyanocobalamin page should be renamed back to its original name "B12".

--Võitkutõde 06:10, 19 June 2007 (UTC) M.D.

I second this. I think that this page should either be about B12 in general or cyanocobalamin specifically. Cyanocobalamin is the most ineffective form of B12 so it should not be equated with the vitamin.24.83.178.11 07:29, 2 November 2007 (UTC)BeeCier


 * I agree. This page is primarily about the vitamin and not about the drug Cyanocobalamin, although of course it refers to it. As a result it is incorrect to use the wikipedia drug naming policy since this article is not about the drug. One middle option would be to have an article on the drug separately with suitable cross-referencing and translusion. The incorrect name of the article is very striking even after reading only a few paragraphs (without prejudice as to whether the drug cyanocobalamin is in fact any use or not). How did we get here? Francis Davey 00:18, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for moving this page. Having "Vitamin B-12" redirect to "Cyanocobalamin" was pretty misinformative. Sowelilitokiemu (talk) 05:59, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Other species' needs for vitamin B-12 besides human beings
What other species need vitamin B-12 from outside sources (their diets)? This should be listed in this article. For example, it is a widely-known fact that human beings need vitamin C from their diets, and that guinea pigs need to eat it, too, but that most other animals produce their own vitamin C. It would be good to have at least a bare-bones level of this information here for vitamin B-12, instead of concentrating 98% on human beings. DAW

Some strange citations
Some of those external links are pretty bad. The Advice for vegans on B12 article sounds like it was written by a high school student. Also the Vitamin B12 information seems to be down. I'm not sure if the site is gone for good or what. I'll have to see if I can add a bit to this article. --Genericdave 22:50, 23 October 2005 (UTC)


 * I agree and thus removed the "Advice for vegans" link. Not only is the style of the article (transscript?) poor, it also contains grave factual errors, for instance: Vitamin B-12 is made by little microscopic plant cells called soil bacteria. The vegansociety.com does a much better job to explain the issues and seems sufficient anyway. Aragorn2 11:37, 5 April 2006 (UTC)


 * i have no i dea wut they r talking about..u? - [User:69.237.97.141|69.237.97.141]] 23:51, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Which bacteria?
Which bacteria produces B12? Anybody know the species?
 * Looking around, I haven't found any specific species mentioned but many places saying that "many" bacteria produce it. I think that it's a fairly common process for bacteria if there's enough cobalt around. However, the bacteria living in the intestine that produce it are too far down for enough to be absorbed by the host animal, so you have to get it the second time around (so to speak). See for information about B12 and horses. Matt 00:49, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)

A number of species. Often Kleibisilla(sp?) and Pseudomonas are used —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.166.24.76 (talk) 06:08, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

no copyrighted materials
Please, don't submit copyrighted material. There was just now a lot of material added to the article, and some of it (in the Structure section) was taken more or less verbatim from ISBN 0471496405. I removed the whole edit because at least a part of it was copyrighted. --Andkaha(talk) 23:49, 16 October 2005 (UTC)


 * Dude, what the . . . ? All the information I have used comes from several free on-line resources (magazines) and namely the introduction part of several articles. What do you mean "part of it was copyrighted" what part of it? The whole work wasn't just a simple "copy-paste", why do you ignore the fact that I have spent some time doing that. I used parts from several different sources, I had to delete a lot of junk info written by the original authors, such as history references, then I had to organize the parts so the result looks compact and without any un necessary information or redundancy, and is easy to understand, and all this process takes time not some 5 min or even half an hour but much more than that. If you think some parts of it were somehow "copyrighted" why did you take out everything including the info for the enzymes, which can be found in any Biochemistry textbook, and finally why did you take the pictures out? Are they copyrighted too? I made the pictures using ISIS Draw, then i converted the files into *.bpm and eventually *.png. I am pretty sure those who have studied B12 would be happy to share their knowledge with the world for FREE. And then i have never seen before the book you have given a reference to - ISBN 0471496405. BorisTM 13:17, 31 October 2005 (UTC)


 * Good day to you too. I'm sorry I upset you (or so it seems anyway).  I based my fact on a simple google search on some of the phrases used in the Structure section of your edit.  They all pointed to here.  The book text might be available for free, but it is copyrighted.  I reverted the edit because of this and also because I simply couldn't tell the source of the rest of the material.  If you feel strongly about including this text in the article, then please cite the sources. See e.g. WP:V and WP:CITE, and also Copyrights.  Kind regards, Andkaha(talk) 16:24, 17 October 2005 (UTC)


 * Alright. BorisTM 13:17, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

Someone should take a look at this and relate it with the b12 article:

http://www.rawbc.org/articles/B12.html

It could be explored the nutritional side of it and the vegetarian, etc., diets and relation to B-12

Why is there no information about miso - a paste that is well known to contain B12 and fits the vegan dietry? And if B12 is present only is non-vegan food, how comes that meat eaters also have a lack of B12? Some statements simply seem to be either contradicting each other, or to be based on still not enough researched ground. 84.145.231.254 02:43, 15 January 2006 (UTC) renu


 * Huh? Isn't the article clear that meat & milk consumers can get Vitamin B-12 deficiencies when the processes for absorbing B-12 in their digestive systems don't work correctly? In other words, food/liquids containing vitamin B-12 is consumed, but it "goes straight through" without being absorbed.


 * The same problem occurs in some people when they have diseases that cause them not to absorb important vitamins, minerals (incl. iron), amino acids, etc. These diseases can make the victim suffer sicknesses, go blind, and even die.

An interesting question is, how comes that cows have a lot of B-12? Do they eat other cows, or all their life drink cow-milk?? I don't know about such ones, I must admit. Ra


 * Their gut microflora, the very same one that enables them to digest the plant material, provides them with enough B12. -- Boris 18:02, 29 January 2006 (UTC)


 * As the article states, bovines, horses, etc., do eat grass, etc., that has had solid wastes excreted onto it by the animals themselves, or by other species.

heard that E.coli do produce it (by rumor of course)

From page
This was posted as a HTML comment in the article. I thought it would get more attention here.
 * Later on in this article, nori and barley grass are given as (inadequate) sources of B12, and another plant - Angelica Sinensis - as being a good source of B12. This contradicts the statement that B12 cannot be made by plants - so there is a problem here (from User:195.10.41.13)

Matt 00:12, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

I think the part refering to the Steven Segal drink should be striken. Remember 18:45, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

mcg?
Why is this article using mcg instead of µg? Should it be changed? 218.103.142.233 03:35, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
 * I would be inclined to agree. --Gak 20:57, 6 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Yes, use the modern symbol for microgram μg - or it is not really too much trouble to type "microgram". Other modern units for mass include the nanogram (ng) (rather than the milli-microgram) and the picogram (pg) (rather than the micro-microgram.

The usage on packaging for food supplements is mcg. Perhaps the public is not familiar with what µ means. in the 1960's, I learned these prefixes from ripping old radios apart and learning how capacitors' values are measured (in µfd and pfd). —Preceding unsigned comment added by Pechaney (talk • contribs) 00:57, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Angelica sinensis
Quote: ''The only known vegan sources of substantial B12 ... are the Chinese herb Dang Gui (Angelica sinensis), used for centuries for treating anemia''

Every so often, a new claim about vegetable sources of vitamin B12 pops up. The problem is that some plants do contain molecules structurally related to the known variants which might be new forms of vitamin B12 (AFAIK the only substances known to be fully active vitamin B12 are cyanocobalamin and methylcobalamin), but they are not known to provide full vitamin B12 activity in humans, or even known not to provide it. For example, the substances contained in "Dang Gui" may show vitamin B12-like activity when it comes to blood formation, but might lack vital vitamin B12 activity in one or several other areas (e.g. removal of homocysteine, myelin formation etc.). The article should make it clear that this source of (what might be) vitamin B12 cannot be considered safe until at least one of the following have been demonstrated:


 * Angelica sinensis contains cyanocobalamin or methylcobalamin.
 * Angelica sinensis contains a chemically related substance that exhibits full vitamin B12 activity in humans. Aragorn2 11:52, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Granny Smith apples

Research by Krug, et al. at the U of Munich (Journal von nutrional Medizin Januar 2004 v.17 ausgabe #1, seiten 169-178) showed that Granny Smith apples contain an adequate amount of b-12. They concluded that eating 3 medium sized apples per week provides a "minimum functioning requirement." It was interesting to note that the other apples that Krug tested were "significantly lower than granny smith." They theorize that the granny smith is the least hybridized of these apples and that might account for its high nutritional content. ---Guthrie  March 12 2006

Plant Cobalamin
Coca leaf contains B12. So does American Ginseng. Look for "Vit-B12" in the Ginseng and Coca listings on "Dr. Duke's Phytochemical and Ethnobotanical Databases. [Online Database] 31 October 2006."

Cobalamin and cyanocobalamin are NOT the same thing. The article should be called "Cobalamin" with "cyanocobalamin" as a subheading, under which it actually states what cyanocobalamin is. The "purification process" involves poisoning vats of fermenting bacteria with cyanide so that they will secrete cyanocobalamin (cobalamin bound to cyanide). (See the Wikipedia article on Cyanide under the heading Treatment of poisoning and antidotes.) Cobalamin is the human body's natural defense against cyanide poisoning.

Depending on cyanocobalamin supplements for your B12 means that your body is unable to protect itself against cyanide, and if you get no other source of B12, you are likely to be diagnosed with bi-polar disorder ("At doses insufficient to cause loss of consciousness, the symptoms can also include faintness, drowsiness, anxiety and excitement."  Wikipedia article on Cyanide, under Subacute poisoning).

--4.245.95.7 04:25, 4 July 2006 (UTC)Dyjak


 * That's an interesting argument. Can you please provide some links to references so that people can expand this article? Thankyou. C3045051 05:06, 19 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I would agree with the part that says cobalamin is vitamin B12. Cyanocobalamin, hydroxocobalamin, methylcobalamin, etc. are all variations on a theme, because cobalamin cannot exist independently (the empty site must be filled).  The article title should be cobalamin and not cyanocobalamin, which is merely one form of the compound. --Gak 21:01, 6 November 2006 (UTC)


 * I agree. Equating B12 with its cyano complex is misleading. 67.117.145.193 08:15, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

Use of Drugbox vs Chembox templates
Given, as the article states that "cyanocobalamin, which is the principal B12 form used for foods and in nutritional supplements" and the article mostly discusses deficiency conditions, "Side effects, contraindications, and warnings" and "Interactions with drugs", would the template:drugbox be a more useful source of information? It also allows 2 sets of images which the current article awkwardly shows. I provide here what I propose with the template partly/largely already filled-in. However, I recognise that B12 is a natural compound and relates therefore not exclusively to medical discussion, so I can foresee others disagreeing - hence my hesitation at being BOLD. So please let me know what you think :-) David Ruben Talk 23:59, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
 * I like it. Put it in!  B12 is excreted in the urine as are all B vitamins (being water soluble).  B12 excretion in the urine is also the basis of the Schilling test.--Gak 16:01, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

allergy
Is it really necessary to have the annoying and irrelevant comment on allergies. There is about one case report of B12 allergy per decade in the medical literature; and it is obvious that people who are allergic to it should not take it. Of course this doesn't stop fish from a supermarket having a sticker which says, "may contain fish," but we do not have to play their silly games. In any case, it is suggested in those rare case reports that it is IV preservative, or something other additive which has caused the allergy. It is too rare for anyone to have bothered to find out what. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Waster (talk • contribs) 17:47, 22 March 2007 (UTC).

Dear Editors:
I believe the ATC code for cyanocobalamin is listed wrong in Wilkipedia. The web page has: B03BB01, but the ATC code should be B03BA01.

Sincerely yours, D. d.papsun@prosoftsoftware.com

Simple Explanation?
OK, I can see there's plenty of chemistry on these vitamin articles but can anyone make a nice clear explanation of exactly what vitamin B-12 is used for in the body and what benefits it has? I mean explained in simple terms, I've read this article three times and still don't know exactly how taking vitamin B-12 will benefit anyone. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 82.7.60.108 (talk) 18:39, 27 April 2007 (UTC).


 * The two main uses of vitamin B-12 by human beings are these:
 * A. It is needed to manufacture the parts of the blood that contain iron. You get anemia without adequate vitamin B-12
 * B. It is needed for various purposes for your nervous system to work right.
 * Vitamin B-12 also performs other functions in many places, but in many of those, folic acid will do just as well.

Indeed - this article is full of scientific details but lacks the necessary touch with laymen who may read it. A simpler introduction would be a good start, but it reads too much like a technical journal and not an article intended for us commoners. Please - try not to make this into a competition among experts to wow us with technojargon.--96.35.104.135 (talk) 03:31, 11 December 2013 (UTC)

Hydroxycobalamin should be a separate entry
Since the title of this page is specific to Cyanocobalamin, Hydroxycobalamin (vit B12a) should be under a separate listing. I believe it has its own history, research, chemical structure, etc... Szalzala 15:16, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Vitamin B12 in vegans.
Vegetarian diet does not have Vitamin B12, as it is exclusive to animal sources(as far as dietary intake is concerned.) Vitamin B12 is absorbed in the terminal ileum, which is (obviously) proximal to colon. The ileo-caecal valve, physiologically, prevents any reguritation of tubal-contents from caecum back into ileum. Vitamin B12 defeciency is a rare condition in vegans (I've known hundreds of vegans who have never taken vitamin supplements and yet have never had Vit B12 defeciency) because it has been documented that colonic bacteria do the favor of providing a vegetarian with Vit B12 by producing it. Then how does a 'thing' produced later in the gut be absorbed proximal to it?

59.180.44.61 11:21, 11 June 2007 (UTC)Steve


 * True single direction of flow. Two thoughts:
 * Is "colonic" used here in the more general sense of "bowel", which would include both the large (colion) and small intestines ? If so then the intestinal bacteria would be making B12 before the terminal ileum.
 * The terminal ileum absorbs a lot of things, but not generally exclusively so compared to anywhere else in the intestines. Hence other areas will also absorb nutrients, but just not as efficiently as the terminal ileum. (likewise alcohol aborption can be significant through the mucus membranes in the mouth - hence why shots of vodka are gulped down in one go rather than slowly sipping away, yet the mouth is clearly not the main area for the majority of alcohol absorption). David Ruben Talk 13:53, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Gut bacteria do produce B12, but it has never been documented that colonic bacteria can compensate for a person's lack of intake of B12, if it does, its probably extremely minute. It can be very dangerous to tell individuals that the bacteria can. Although its true that some people who dont eat animal products do not exhibit B12 deficiency, its important to also know that B12 deficiency takes years to occur. Its very possible that some people just havent been vegans long enough to feel the effects. In addition, humans have some capacity to adjust to a lower B12 reserve. Depending on your B12 reserve it could be between 4-6 years before you begin to notice anything. And if you actually do start noticing anything, your first thought probably isnt going to be B12 defiency, because the associated symptoms are not immediately specific. Its also been observed that any increased folic acid diet (such as most diets in the United States, due to fortified foods) can mask the symptoms of B12 deficiency. This is especially true when you look at their effects on the blood, in particular megaloblastic anemia.

On another note, animals use different mechnisms from humans to obtain Vitamin b12. Bovine and other herbivores actually do rely on their gut bacteria for B12. This is because their gut is structured differently than ours and allows B12 producing bacteria to be present in many more locations. The act of regurgitating their food and repeatedly chewing it is one factor that contributes to the release of B12.

Chickens get their B12 from ingesting their own droppings.

Symptoms are missing from article
Someone needs to include a symptoms section. Readers coming to this page to check if they have the deficiency have no way to compare their symptoms to the standard symptoms. Skopp ( Talk )  22:43, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Symptoms included
I made a major update of the page including, symptoms diagnosis and causes of deficiency. I will add more references to these sections when time allows.

--Võitkutõde 06:55, 19 June 2007 (UTC) Physician

B12
I couldn't find any info on what the recommended daily allowance is for the average adult. It would be helpful if someone would provide that information. Dcot 03:21, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

--- REPLY: Because of the clearly wrong normal values, the daily allowance values are also most probably wrong as it takes significantly more B12 to uphold more than twice as high a blood level as formerly believed to be sufficient. Therefore there are no acceptable RDA values presently. But it is very clear that B12 is non-toxic and people have been treated with doses over ten thousand times higher than the present RDA without any other effect than becoming cured from their neurological disorder. --Võitkutõde 13:29, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

Symptoms and damage from deficiency
I question that Alzhiemers dementia is the *most* serious consequence of B-12 deficiency. Secondly, I am curious as to where the claim that 'most physicians are unaware' of this came from. I suspect 'most physicians' would be 'most offended'. I shall remove it. Drowner1979 13:19, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

____

REPLY: I cannot think of any more serious consequence of B12 because of the devastating effects of this disorder.

I am a physician and have been working in the US, Sweden and Germany. I am a specialist in internal medicine and have dealt with B12 cases since over 30 years. It is my experience from all these countreis that very few cases of Alzheimer have been treated effectively with B12 because of a general unawareness of this connection until lately. And even presently, because of the wrong reference values, many cases of Alzheimer with "normal" blood values according to the outdated standards, have been untreated. This is highly tragic as a connection was strongly indciated already over 20 years ago and hundreds of thousands of people all over the world would have been saved from this serious disease if the scientific findings had been applied. --Võitkutõde 13:20, 7 July 2007 (UTC)


 * I think what's highly tragic is your complete misunderstanding of the pathophysiology of vitamin B-12 deficiency. I fail to see how anyone practicing medicine for thirty years could equate B-12 deficiency with Alzheimer's disease.  You have no scientific basis for this association, other than your personal experience, if that.  You should review the policies of Wikipedia: it is not a venue for publishing original research. I think we should stick to the scientific method as a way of knowing, and part of the scientific method is that experiments should be externally verifiable.  If you cite your own experience as the sole support of your claims, that makes your claims unverifiable by definition, and therefore suspect as false.--Dr.michael.benjamin 04:40, 8 July 2007 (UTC)


 * I agree that the scientific method MUST be used, and that the Wikipedia is no place for speculative notions at all. Also, even it it was verified that vitamin B-12 deficiency had something to do with Alzheimer's Disease, it wouldn't be the "most serious consequence". Pernacious Anemia in children & young adults is a far more serious consequence that Alzheimer's among the elderly. Sorry, but serious diseases among young people are just more important than diseases of old people who don't have many years to live anyway. It is a matter of the lost years and longer suffering.

'Contradictory' Tag
I added this tag to the 'causes of deficiency' because the statistics don't seem to match up. A large study in the US found that 39 percent had low values Now, compare the above to the two following statements: Absorption decreases with age so older people are under significant risk to be deficient. In one study 40% of people above 65 were deficient in vitamin B12 Recent research has found that B12 deficiency is common among vegetarians - as much as 30% may be deficient If prevelency among the general population is 39%, a 1% greater prevelency among the elderly hardly seems noteworthy. Moreover, according to the above, vegetarians are 9% LESS likely to suffer a deficiency! --Xiaphias 15:54, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

-- REPLY There is no contradiction. I am referring to different studies using different methods of selection, and therefore the numbers may be different. This is common in medical materials. The vegetarians had deficiency, but the 39% of the general population had low levels or deficiency. However, considering that there are strong reasons to believe that the normal levels are too low, actually a much greater proportion in each category probably had deficiency. --Võitkutõde 13:03, 7 July 2007 (UTC)


 * I don't see any citations of this data, and I added Fact annotations until we can come up with citations. Orthomolecular journal citations would have to be reviewed before deemed appropriate for inclusion here--my library don't subscribe to those journals.  We should demand a large preponderance of evidence before turning away from established benchmarks of diagnosis.--Dr.michael.benjamin 23:17, 7 July 2007 (UTC)


 * There is a large question of definition here. MOST vegetarians are not vegans, and MOST vegetarians consume food & drink like cheese, butter, and milk that contains vitamin B-12.
 * I also agree that extraordinary claims require extraordinaty evidence in any field of discovery or knowledge. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.146.44.249 (talk) 00:11, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Symptoms and damage from deficiency
Please, could whoever wrote that stuff about the 'inaccurate' reference ranges back it up with a quality reference? The site given appears to be an advertisement. The claims made appear to be unjustified. This is not a forum to claim a new and controversial theory as fact. If you wish to mention that one author seems to consider that the reference ranges are incorrect, thats fine, but surely stating that point as fact in bold text reeks of spam.

-- REPLY

The present reference values are from the olden times when most research was made on B12-deficiency anemia. Several studies in later years found that neurological disorders could appear without anemia. This resulted in research indicating that much B12 higher levels are needed to prevent neurological damage.

Japan has not changed its reference values on the basis of extensive research. Here are a few references concluding that the lower reference levels should be increased to more than double that of present values:

VanTiggelen CJM, Peperkamp JPC, TerToolen JFW. Vitamin-B12 levels of cerebrospinal fluid in patients with organic mental disorder. Journal of Orthomolecular Psychiatry 12: 305-11, 1983. [Concluded the minimum value should be 600 pg/ml]

Mitsuyama Y, Kogoh H. Serum and cerebrospinal fluid vitamin B12 levels in demented patients with CH3-B12 treatment - preliminary study. Japanese Journal of Psychiatry and Neurology 42, 1: 65-71, 1988. [Concluded the minimum value should be 550 pg/ml] --Võitkutõde 13:03, 7 July 2007 (UTC)


 * The above is garbage, I say. Your summaries and citations are not persuasive enough to warrant changing the standard thresholds.  If you can explain why the B12 deficiency threshold should be changed in terms of the Receiver operating characteristic, then maybe I'll go along with your scheme to foist a new standard on us through Wikipedia.  If you don't know what that is, or can't muster the data to support your claims, please desist in making POV edits to the article.--Dr.michael.benjamin 07:02, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Vitamin B12 is a popular substance for use in diluting (or cutting) methamphetamine.

 * Vitamin B12 costs about €70 per gram, substantially more than methamphetamine! It is also bright red in colour. Removed as vandalism. Physchim62 19:29, 29 May 2005 (UTC)

Absorption Paths
Sentence in article section Human digestion needs clarification / modification. It says:

Absorption of vitamin B12 therefore requires an intact and functioning stomach, exocrine pancreas, intrinsic factor, and small bowel.

Article on intrinsic factor notes:

From More recently, Swedish researchers discovered that sufficiently large doses of B-12 can also be absorbed sublingually, so injections are necessary only for those unable to take pills by sublingual administration.

The sentence may be correct for the absorption path for vitamin B12 from normal food sources. Perhaps it would be sufficient to say "Absorption of vitamin B12 therefore normally requires..." Samatva 02:07, 15 July 2007 (UTC)


 * There is nothing special about the sublingual route (no proof that B12 is absorbed better that way). But the fact that massive doses (500 mcg and up) by mouth every day can treat even lack of intrinsic factor, by mass action, has been known for 30 years. This needs to be added, and I'll do so when I find the references. Also, I don't much like the title of this article. It should be "Vitamin B12" with "B12" and "cyanocobalamin" (and other vitamers) redirecting to vitamin B12. Cyanocobalamin is an unnatural molecule which arises when bacterial B12 from cultures are filtered through activated charcoal; the natural vitamers react with the cyanide in the charcoal, for which they have high affinity, and cyanocobalamin results. This molecule is very stable and easy to crystalize, which is why it's commercially produced and is the most common form the vitamin, particularly in multivitamins. But the body has a bit of difficulty getting the -CN off, particularly in "tobacco amblyopia" where there's cyanide to be dealt with all the time. So I hate to see "cyanocobalamin" put up as "THE" name for the vitamin. It's not! The vitamin, like all vitamins, is not the name of a particular chemical entity so much as the entire class of entities which have the necessary vitamin activity which defines the vitamin. Niacin and niainamide are both vitamin B3, for example. And so also with this vitamin.  S  B Harris 00:19, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

Following the dictum to BE BOLD
I have fixed up this whole mess, so that vitamin B12, which is a class of compounds, not "cyanocobalamin", now properly directs to the whole class of molecules with B12 activity, not just cyanocobalamin. Cyanocobalamin, in turn, now gets its own stub as being the most well-known of the B-12 vitamer class, but not a synonym for the either the vitamin or the vitamer class.

In the future, somebody may actually want to tease out the "cyanocobalamin TALK" and put it in its own section, but meanwhile it's easlier just to move most of it here, and discuss the redirect THERE. S B Harris 06:21, 3 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Why is there not a standard set of vitamin boxes? They are a pretty fundamental set and many other families have boxes. Francis Davey 18:46, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
 * There is a navigation box at the bottom of the article David Ruben Talk 20:46, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Function Misunderstanding
There is a huge misunderstanding of the 2 enzymes and there function throughout this article. Basically, MUT doesn’t produce methionine, MTR (also known as methionine synthase) does. Then methionine is converted to s-adenosyl-methionine(SAM-e) via the enzyme Methionine Adenosyl Transferase (MAT).

Also this statement in the heading is incorrect: “When sufficient folic acid is available, all known B-12 functions normalize, save those connected with the enzyme Methylmalonyl Coenzyme A mutase (MUT), and its products (S-adenosylmethionine, SAMe) and substrates (methylmalonic acid, MMA).” It couldn’t be much more wrong; Both of the enzymes that require B12 would still be inactive. “Sufficient” folic acid would only correct folic acid requirements. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.249.237.91 (talk) 16:05, 12 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Good pick up. Yes, of course MTR makes methionine (though it needs HomoC to do it, which isn't in the diet, which is why methionine is essential). If it doesn't work, HomoC builts up. And also a lot of folate ends up as 5-methyl-THF with nowhere to go and nothing to do (that step in using 5-methyl-THF to convert homocysteine back to methionine is the ONLY connection between folate and B12). Does the article really say that MUT produces methionine? I can't find it, but will fix if I do. Yes, it's true that both MTR and MUT need B12, so the activity of both enzymes is interrupted if B12 is deficient (that does need a fix). So the bad things that happen from B-12 deficiency are BOTH due to MUT deficiency (methylmalonic acid buildup), and ALSO MTR deficiency (homocysteine builts up). So the article should say that when folate is available, all B-12 functions relative to DNA normalize, not those relative to MTR. Since of course if you have enough folate, you need no MTR to rescue 5-M-THF, but can continue to methylate thymidine with 5,10 MTHF which you can continue to make from dietary folate-->THF via STHM. The strictly DNA-synthesizing methyl transfer reactions which cause anemia don't depend at all on B12, and folate cycling doesn't either. Just EFFICIENT folate cycling. S  B Harris 02:56, 13 February 2008 (UTC)


 * It implies that MUT produces methionine and then SAM-e, from the statement: "Methylmalonyl Coenzyme A mutase (MUT), and its products (S-adenosylmethionine, SAMe)", which is wrong. SAM-e isn't a product from MUT, Succinyl COA is, as it says elsewhere.  This statement is also wrong, therefore: "In a vitamin B12-dependent MUT reaction, methionine is subsequently converted to S-adenosyl-methionine".  It is MTR that is responsible for the eventual evolution of SAM-e, not MUT.  You say that B12 isn't needed for folate cycling, just "efficient" cycling.  I understand that there are other pathways, but this is a major pathway.  Without it, you would soon die.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.249.237.91 (talk) 15:27, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks again for the input. Again, you're right about the biochem, and this needs fixing. SAMe decreases in B12 deficiency, but nobody knows why. It even happens in some methionine supplemented models, so evidentally it's not all due (simply) to low methionines due to this essential AA getting caught in a "homocysteine" trap from which it is unable to escape via MS/MTR. But anyway, you're right that low SAMe certainly has nothing to do with MUT, and SAMe synthesis per se isn't B-12 dependent, except as you might need B12 to have enough methione around if intake is poor. SAMe/AdoMet synthesis requires needs ATP, methionine, and methionine adenosyl transferase (MAT), a non-B12 dependent enzyme (so far as I can tell, though prepare to be surprised, since we don't know all these is to know about it). However, yes, this needs revision, as MAT is presently NOT one of the two recognized classes of B-12 cofactor-needing enzymes. I will fix. I have a bit more problem with your flat statement about how important B12 recycling of folate is. Whether I "soon die" without B12 depends entirely on what I eat. Contrary to popular opinion, megaloblastic anemia in vegans is so rare as to be reportable (a few cases are reported), but even there, it's probably (and certainly in some cases ) due to vegans with a low folate diet (this is possible if the vegan exists on grains, flours, nuts). The typical vegan with B12 deficiency does not have anemia, but merely low B12 and perhaps some neurological problems. Vegan children with health problems don't present with megaloblastic anemia, but rather with malnutrition from protein, calories, and many minerals, and even low vitamin D if they don't get enough sun-- B12 is the least of their problems. For adults, a vegan diet with lots of greens will have several mg of folate a day, and with that intake (5 x RDI), you have no need of folate recycling to avoid all folate dependent problems, which includes all the DNA synthetic ones. Yes, your B-12 deficiency problems of other types related to high homocysteines and MMA's will continue. But the article says that, now. Whether they kill or not, and how fast, is a good question. Clinically, it can't be fast because it's rare. Pure B12 deficiency while eating a high folate diet? It's possible in theory, but in practice-- well you find me the cites (I've looked and missed them). S  B Harris 05:09, 14 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Has Wikipedia got a discussion forum, instead of this discussion page? It would be a lot easier, and might encourage more people to give their input. I was on about complete lose of this pathway.  B12 deficient vegans don't come close to this pathway being lost completely.  Even people with autoimmune pernicious anaemia, who are far worse than vegans, don't come close.  The amount of folic acid you would need to supplement with to make up for this, couldn't be met by diet, practically.  This is one of the reasons why B12 is classed as a vitamin. The whole idea that folic acid is somehow a substitute for B12 flies in the face of B12 being classified as a vitamin.  I think statements like this should be changed: "When sufficient folic acid is available, all known B-12 related deficiency syndromes normalize" and “Most ‘B-12 deficient symptoms’ are actually folate deficient symptoms”.  Folate recycling is only one part of what B12 does.  Sure, anaemia is a very obvious symptom, but B12 is integral to krebs cycle and SAM-e methylation.  Chronic fatigue is related to B12 deficiency; folic acid wouldn't correct B12's involvement in that.  Depression, liver disease, adrenal fatigue and joint disease are just a few of the ailments related to low SAM-e levels.  SAM-e is the universal methylating agent for hundreds of biochemical reactions which folic acid wouldn't correct.  Then there’s the build up of homocysteine and methylmalonic acid which causes atherosclerosis and demyelination respectively.  From a symptoms list for pernicious anaemia, the actual anaemia is caused by low folate, but the others can be attributed to B12’s other functions, sometimes in concert with low folic acid levels.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.249.237.91 (talk) 16:13, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

This IS the discussion forum for B12. English Wikipedia has 2 million+ articles, and the general forums are for general discussions of how the encyclopedia works, not minutiae of biochemistry. Again, I would suggest that you register under some name, to become a "nameuser" (it doesn't have to be your real name), and build up some credibility here. At present, there's no other way to do these things. "Subject experts" are not recognized on Wikipedia, a matter which professors who find their way here, find endlessly galling (I'm trying to change this, but that's a long story). Now, as for the topic at hand: As you know, you need neither B-12 or folate to make SAMe. All you need is methionine, which you need to eat anyway, because it's essential (you can make it from homocysteine, but there's no good dietary source of that). Vegans eat less methionine (present in meats in high amount) and so may have less SAMe, but don't mistake cause and effect. Also, don't be a victim of the alternative medicine/autism/CFS crowd, who carry on about need for vitamins to make SAMe (except when they want to sell you actual SAMe). I know of one RAT paper in which B12 deficient rats had lower liver SAMe, but not lower brain SAMe. . This is NOT very good evidence that B12 effects all those neuro SAMe functions you mention. Also, you say B-12 is integral to SAM-e methylation? Says who? And on what evidence?. In pigs, the levels of SAMe don't change at all in B12 deficiency. One group suggests that the neuro problems in B12 deficiency are thus partly due to elevated S-adenosyl-HOMO-cysteine, because of the unchanging SAMe levels. But nobody really knows. And the fact that people are struggling to find some other mechanism than lowered SAMe for B'12's neuro effects, means something: it means what's going on, is not as obvious as you seem to think. The article, as writen now, has qualifiers, and says that MOST of the symptoms of B12 deficiency normalize, except those narrowly connected to homocysteine and MMA buildup. I think that's a more or less consensus [corrected spelling] view. The GI effects of pernicious anemia (PA) are in part primary autoimmune (they CAUSE the PA in the first place), and also certainly partly due to DNA synthesis loss, as your gut lining turns over fast like bone marrow, and folate deficiency is like chemotherapy. In any case, you can't just write down a list of SAMe functions and theorize. You have to show B-12 supplementation raising SAMe, and that's just the beginning. Don't quote from quacks-- primary literature, please. "Chonic fatigue is related to B-12 deficiency?" Who says? Where's the evidence, let alone proof? As for the question of what's a vitamin, it's not a clear one. Vitamins K and D are vitamins, and you really often don't need to eat either one. Depends on circumstances. I'll look around to see if I can find a measure of how much folate is needed to restore DNA synthesis in absense of B-12. But in the meanwhile, recognize that it's an open question. S B Harris 23:34, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

English translation
Because this is an encyclopedia that is used by everyone, regardless of their knowledge of chemistry, could we keep at least the intro paragraph a bit less esoteric? I came to the page to learn just a bit about B-12 and had to wade through endless tracts with words like: "substrate","enzymatically", or "prosthetic chemical". I've taken the massive greek treatise and moved it to Structure and put in its place a more English description. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sack36 (talk • contribs) 06:54, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Yours is a fair criticism in and of itself, but like most criticisms, it invites the response of: Oh, yeah, let's see you do better. An article this long should have more than a short one-paragraph LEAD for summary, which is all you've left. If you remove stuff from the lead to someplace else, it's incumbent on you to replace it with something equally explanatory which takes up the same space. Yes, we realize this is harder. But you do not help much if you blow in and do easy editing things, while leaving the harder writing to other people. S  B Harris 01:07, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

IUPAC NAME FOR THIS COMPOUND?
I really wonder :)). Other vitamins and this one! This is huge!--78.163.169.113 (talk) 17:54, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Cyanocobalamin (most common food additive vitamer) is Coα-[α-(5,6-Dimethylbenzimidazolyl)]-Coβ-cyanocobamide, with cobamides defined from cobamic acid and so on, back to the basic corrin ring, which is named definitionally from the structure. For the gory details see http://www.chem.qmul.ac.uk/iupac/misc/B12.html. S  B Harris 23:13, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

C-Co bond
"The covalent C-Co bond is one of first examples of carbon-metal bonds in biology." This is in the section on the structure of the compound. I was wondering if someone could clarify the meaning of the "first" example. Is it in order of time of discovery, importance of the role in the body or something else? Thanks 04cah (talk) 07:06, 26 October 2008 (UTC)
 * It is one of the first to be discovered. In fact, it must be THE first. S  B Harris 01:29, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Hyphen between B and 12
I noticed that the article said "Vitamin B-12" a lot. Apparently someone went through and changed most of the "B12"s to "B-12"s, even when the B12 was part of a title or a URL, which isn't correct. Anyway, the usual name in reliable sources omits the hyphen between the "B" and the "12"; we should be consistent. I changed it back to B12. Eubulides (talk) 21:52, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Consistency
The numbers in section 'Natural food sources of B12' seem not to be consistent with the numbers in section 'recommendation'. And if 0.3 µg equals about 6%, then 0.6 µg is not 10%. Didn't check the other figures, but I would expect more inconsistencies. Re-mark (talk) 10:53, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Chart suggestion for vitamins and minerals.
Chart suggestion for vitamins and minerals.

Having been in business with a herbal department, there appears to be a need for a standardized presentation of vitamins and minerals to provide handy information to the general public.

Suggestion the following graph, if someone with this ability can present it as so.

Recommend a stardaized chart. Top lines, recommended daily allowance.

Then prioritized items that provide the element, together with amount of item in each serving and a percentage of the recommended daily allowance.

Why?

Well say vitamin C. One glass of orange juice. 100%

Vitamin D. One egg, 20. 3%

At the bottom of the chart important co ingredients required, and or negative factors to absorption.

Percentage of daily allowance per serving of food is a necessity for each item.
 * There are many RDAs that may specify different quantities and unless the bio-availability of each type or perhaps even to each person the exact quantities could not be known. Some quantities need to be stated for helping the public though. Disclaimers perhaps?--174.118.149.54 (talk) 01:48, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

--Caesar J.B. Squitti: Son of Maryann Rosso and Arthur Natale Squitti (talk) 09:47, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

It is important to show how 'difficult' some vitamins or minerals are to obtain in one's 'diet'....Vitamin D is a difficult one or so is B 12...unless you eat the 'right' foods...

--Caesar J.B. Squitti: Son of Maryann Rosso and Arthur Natale Squitti (talk) 14:51, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Inconsistent units of measure
Removed this from the main page:

The "Vitamin B12 Deficiency" page repeatedly uses units (pg/L) which are wrong by a factor of 1,000 (should be pg/mL). It is not inconceivable that someone, doing some calculation of appropriate serum B12 levels and the consequent required supplement intake, could kill themselves - either by overdose or deprivation (haven't thought that through)!! Someone should fix this quick! (Not familiar with the process). The units should clearly be pg/ml, as can be easily confirmed from the conversion from pmol/L and the molecular weight, but also from other reference sources. I've entered a similar comment in the discussion section of that article, but it looks as tho the error has been longstanding, and that this article is much more actively monitored.

This is a copied section from Talk:Vitamin B12 deficiency. Please keep discussion to the discussion pages. 82.95.254.249 (talk) 21:10, 25 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Not likely kill anybody even if they were being their own doctor (and not a doctor). Any lab report of B12 levels will not only tell you if it's out of range low or high, but tell you want the hormal lab range is, in the same units. S  B Harris 22:43, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Fun Fact
Rain contains Vitamin B12 TheThingy  TalkWebsite 22:26, 24 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Source: And I don't believe it, as this was reported before there existed good assays for B12. Any B12 would be from airborne bacteria there, and you've have much better luck eating dirt. Even better, dog doo.  S  B Harris 22:41, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

it's like homoeopathic medicine, they contain about as much medication as sea water contains wale sperm... Markthemac (talk) 19:02, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

Grams, not ounces
A wikipedia article should use scientific units of measurement, not cookbook units, at least not exclusively. Ounces, pounds etc. should be replaced by grams / kilograms as the primary unit of measurement, when talking about servings, the serving size in grams should be given also, i.e. "a 200 gram" serving.

Aah, yes, the 29-century serving. "Lasts twenty lifetimes". 180.200.150.113 (talk) 09:58, 25 March 2015 (UTC)

Name of inactive vitamin B12 in plants
What is the name of an inactive form of vitamin B12? How to know for sure which form is inactive? Is there somewhere made experiments with mammals - such as mice, regarding the impact of the inactive form of vitamin B12? What are the chemical differences between active and inactive form of vitamin B12? Is it unusable inactive form of vitamin B12? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dbtm (talk • contribs) 23:20, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Alexander R. Todd and vitamin B12
Hi there, are there any references for an _immediate_ involvement of Alexander R. Todd in the isolation of vitamin B12 in 1948, and/or in the revelation of its structure in 1955?

1) In the English Wikipedia articles on Pernicious anemia and Vitamin B12 it is claimed that it was Alexander R. Todd who - simultaneously with the American Karl Foster - first isolated vitamin B12 in 1948, while most other available sources say that it wasn't Todd, but the British Lester Smith, who worked at the same time for Glaxo Laboratories.

2) In the article on Alexander R. Todd himself it is claimed that "In 1955 he elucidated the structure of vitamin B12", while most other available sources, including the English Wikipedia article on Vitamin B12, say that it wasn't Todd, but the British Dorothy Hodgkin, who achieved this, also in 1955.

So, can anybody explain these ambiguities? Or do they emerge from the fact that Todd is/was just more prominent? In order to get an answer fast, I post this query in discussion section of both articles. --Qniemiec (talk) 17:17, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

Inconsistency in the article
hey y'all, in the "Foods" subsection of "Sources, it claims that the 2.4µg one would get from 85 grams of beef would only be 40% of one's RDI, while in the "Recommendations" section, it says - like i've always heard - the RDI for B12 is 2-3µg/day. anyone know more about these sorts of things? --209.183.22.98 (talk) 14:30, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
 * You would have to specify which RDA / RDI you are referring to. Many countries define their own and many specify different quantities. Many people do not want to see the **minimum** listed, as it changes frequently and some consider the "minimum quantity to sustain life without disease" as useless information.--174.118.149.54 (talk) 01:44, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Exasperated agreement, regarding inaccurate units
As an active researcher, I would express agreement with < 82.95.254.249 > regarding the discussion under the heading "Inconsistent Units of Measure".

I am chagrined by the indifference / casual attitude toward responsibilities regarding these facts, and the lack of awareness of how wiki, and in general, web information on pharmacologically active substances, is used by the public -- as reflected in the reply comment.

In my professional and reasonably informed view, there is absolute need for use of accurate units in creating secondary (wiki) reports of information on pharmacologically active agents. I strongly believe that **reporting no information of this type is better than reporting such information inaccurately**. Here, the error of three orders of magnitude is enough to move almost any substance from innocuous/therapeutic to toxic!

This is part of a more general trend, highlighting a glaring area of weakness of the "it's OK to make mistakes" philosophy reflected in the "pillars". I will take up the general matter with senior Wiki personnel.

Prof D.

Meduban (talk) 22:30, 23 February 2011 (UTC) I also think the yeast addition should be removed from the sources chart. All of the others are naturally occurring. The yeast extract addition has B12 in it because the manufacturer has added it. This means the manufacturer could add more, less or none at all making this entry potentially inaccurate at any given moment. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.83.215.76 (talk) 02:46, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

Inaccurate or inadequate citations re absorption
"absorption of vitamin B12 actually begins in the mouth" There is anecdotal evidence that this is true, but there is no confirmation of it in the citation (9) http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/DRI//DRI_Thiamin/306-356_150.pdf. Citation required.

"high oral doses of free crystalline B12 is absorbed along the entire intestine by passive diffusion" If that is true, what is the reference? I have only seen references to absorption (passive or otherwise) via the ileum.

"Sublingual methods of replacement are effective only because of the typically high doses (0.5 mg) which are swallowed" This statement is too strong, and tends to contradict the earlier statement that absorption begins in the mouth. It should be preceded by (say) "It may be that". — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hughesr (talk • contribs) 04:16, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

I've removed the following from the infobox:
 * StdInChi = 1S/C62H90N13O14P.CN.Co/c1-29-20-39-40(21-30(29)2)75(28-70-39)57-52(84)53(41(27-76)87-57)89-90(85,86)88-31(3)26-69-49(83)18-19-59(8)37(22-46(66)80)56-62(11)61(10,25-48(68)82)36(14-17-45(65)79)51(74-62)33(5)55-60(9,24-47(67)81)34(12-15-43(63)77)38(71-55)23-42-58(6,7)35(13-16-44(64)78)50(72-42)32(4)54(59)73-56;1-2;/h20-21,23,28,31,34-37,41,52-53,56-57,76,84H,12-19,22,24-27H2,1-11H3,(H15,63,64,65,66,67,68,69,71,72,73,74,77,78,79,80,81,82,83,85,86);;/q;;+2/p-2/t31?,34-,35-,36-,37+,41-,52-,53-,56-,57+,59-,60+,61+,62+;;/m1../s1

If it's actually important to the article, please find a way to present it that doesn't leave the infobox wider than the screen, and thus, unreadable. --67.160.38.148 (talk) 05:13, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

VItamin B12 / Sources / Foods
I am hit by the sentence "Eggs are often mentioned as a good B12 source, but they also contain a factor that blocks absorption."

I think the part where this is stated in ^ Doscherholmen A et al. (1975). Proc Soc Exp Biol Med. 149. pp. 987–90. should be quoted and more arguments brought forth. Personally i believe that work might have been misinterpreted, thus the statement is false. Personally i am convinced i get b12 from eggs.

This "Eggs are often mentioned as a good B12 source, but they also contain a factor that blocks absorption." should be checked, verified and other references cited.

--Klett (talk) 21:54, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

Recent redirect deletes useful data
Cobalamin and Vitamin B12 are basically the same thing. However, I strongly oppose R'n'B's drive-by edits where he redirects the separate Cobalamin page to this page (and then removes the, now circular, link). Specifically, the information on the original page was an exceptionally good summary of the molecular differences between the different versions of B12. Q Science (talk) 20:19, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Layout broken?
The layout of this page seems broken on Firefox 7, whats wrong? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.245.189.224 (talk) 10:10, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Try now. I have no Firefox 7, but what I see on older FF and IE is that for a few seconds, the infobox is very wide and then collapses to normal. Suspecting that this is related to the monstrous InChi lines in the infobox I commented them out (their usefulness is limited anyway). Materialscientist (talk) 10:28, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Works now, thanks! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.245.189.224 (talk) 10:35, 25 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Well, since this is a drugbox it is not parsed into the end-HTML of the page so indeed it does not too much. But commenting them out is .. not a solution.  'Their usufulness is limited anyway' - many people do search on internet for InChI or InChI-fragments.  Not having them in the end-HTML hence takes them out of internet search results - and for people starting from Wikipedia, not having them here results in them not being able to copy the search string into a search engine and finding other pages with the same compound or putting them into a specialised drawing program and having a drawing of the molecule.
 * I do recognise that they are a problem for a few readers - specifically for the few that have JAVA not installed or turned off. It is a bit of a loose-loose situation - either some miss the functionality of the InChI, or some miss the proper layout of the page.  Note that 'breaking' the InChI in chunks would give the same problem as leaving it out - it is just an ugly beast to begin with.  Irritating, sometimes recurring problem (which also exists for some excessively long IUPAC-names and others, by the way).  It would be good if the box could be REALLY forced to a maximum width, but that seems impossible.  --Dirk Beetstra T  C 10:52, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
 * A relevant bug, I actually can't see long InChi like here if I click "show" in Firefox - the InChi is wrapped into 2 lines and the left part is hidden behind the wikimedia left toolbox. In IE, it wraps into several lines and shows up fine. Thus it apparently depends not only on enabling Java, but also on the Java varieties. Maybe there is a smart way to keep InChi searchable from the web but not display it in the article, though I seriously doubt anyone searches by InChi as monstrous as for vitamin B12. Materialscientist (talk) 11:09, 25 October 2011 (UTC)


 * As far as I understand, InChI also supports searching on fragments - trying to find some relevant info on that. --Dirk Beetstra T  C 11:31, 25 October 2011 (UTC)


 * I'm afraid that the InChI is not amenable to fragment searching. You may be thinking of the fact that the layered nature of the InChI allows searching for structures with the same atom connectivity but different stereochemistry. Because of its length the InChI is not useful for Google Searches, but on certain websites the InChI is a supported method for searching their database or catalogue - when I'm trying to match Chemboxes with ChemSpider records an InChI is the simplest way of searching (though sadly not so common for the types of records I look at). The huge benefit I would point out is that an InChI can be very simply converted to a structure format, which means that rather than drawing out a structure by copying the image from the image in the Chembox you could get the structure very simply by conversion from the InChI. --The chemistds (talk) 19:54, 25 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Re: the issue with the current Java solution, would it be any better to make it so that the InChI is only visible if you have Java enabled? Allternatively, would there be any way to make it so that the InChI is not visible to a reader but have a button that you can click on to copy the InChI into the browser's clipboard? (I'm guessing this is possibly very difficult due to the variety of different browsers that must be supported) I know that we do something on ChemSpider that requires Flash (this was to get round issues with linebreaks in browsers). --The chemistds (talk) 20:04, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
 * One general solution could be moving such strings (also overly long alternative names, and just obscure data) to a data page, like Water (data page), Ethanol (data page), etc. Materialscientist (talk) 22:34, 25 October 2011 (UTC)


 * I think it is impossible to meaningfully talk about obscure data in Wikipedia, one man's obscure data is another person's key piece of information. I would be fairly unhappy about such a move to take InChI's off the main article page - the records that have InChI's are discrete chemical species and the InChI is the piece of information that actually captures the structure most accurately (in 99% of the cases). It is the structure (as much as the image is) and while it might not be particularly human readable it can be hugely useful for many tasks that a person might want to perform and also enables computers to understand Chemistry which is useful for on- and off- wiki applications.
 * I'd also point out that most pages do not currently have data pages and in a very large number of chemical compound pages there would be no value to having a data page. --The chemistds (talk) 08:10, 26 October 2011 (UTC)
 * My proposal was not to move all InChi to data pages, but to use data pages for storing information which would be otherwise removed from the main article (strings too long, data too technical, etc.), i.e., use it as a "general solution for exceptional cases" - this is what the data pages were designed for. They are still mainframe articles and can be processed automatically owing to their uniform naming: Article (data page). Materialscientist (talk) 09:04, 26 October 2011 (UTC)


 * (ec)I see the confusion with the fragment searching, that was SMILES (an equally ugly and long string ..).
 * The problem of 'length' is there in many of the strings (IUPACName, synonyms, SMILES, InChI, ..) that you wouldn't really like to 'break' to make them more visible since one breaks (some) functionality when doing that. I don't know why the dash is not 'line-breaking' a string in many cases, if that would be the case it would very easily be solved.
 * The InChI is actually the main identifier I use to get a lot of other identifiers. Breaking them would make automated searches also from my side really difficult, and updating them is going to be equally tedious the other way around.
 * In a way, if you want to find a bit more complex chemical online, the search giving the best data is the one using the ugly long string of the InChI. Looking for 'Vitamin B12' is going to get you a lot of other results, but generally a lot of them less scientific.  Searching by name is tedious (many names, which one does the record use, see the many propriety names for many drugs - do you look for Viagra, Sildenafil or for 1-[4-ethoxy-3-(6,7-dihydro-1-methyl-7-oxo-3-propyl-1H-pyrazolo[4,3-d]pyrimidin-5-yl)phenylsulfonyl]-4-methylpiperazine); for CAS might be fine online, but is not fail-save either; and searching for the pure numerical identifiers (ChemSpiderID) is not going to work at all (try searching for 236 vs. benzene vs. InChI=1S/C6H6/c1-2-4-6-5-3-1/h1-6H).  And the InChI has as an extra, that when one has it (e.g. found on Wikipedia) one can create quickly a representation from it (as e.g. Jmol is generating a 3D model from SMILES).  --Dirk Beetstra T  C 09:07, 26 October 2011 (UTC)
 * No real problem with moving things to subpages where it is really breaking things - though that would result in many subpages. It may be a 'gentle' solution.  --Dirk Beetstra T  C 09:07, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

How about simply not telling chembox to display this field? It will still be in the main text of the article, I think it will still be found on Google (?), but it won't be visible until you enter the edit window. --Rifleman 82 (talk) 15:18, 26 October 2011 (UTC)


 * InChIs can be Googled, but there can be issues with long InChIs (this is why the InChIKey was created). While the Key is much shorter, because it is hashed, you lose all of the useful structural information - unless you look up the InChI again. Not displaying the InChI in the main page is a solution, but I would argue that if a piece of information is useful, it should be in the article. As an illustration when I interact with the Drugbox in an article and want to get a SMILES string I find it very frustrating that the data is not there. Incidentally, I just noticed that in the Drugbox if there is an InChI it is forced to wrap within the width constraints of the box, can the approach used in the Drugbox also be applied to the Chembox? --The chemistds (talk) 08:02, 27 October 2011 (UTC)


 * @Rifleman 82 - Search engines read the final result, if it is in the page code, but not somewhere in the final result, it will not be found. There are non-displaying ways of making sure it is in the final result - one could consider a
 * I don't expect many people will use Google for finding data, but for those that are in the cheminformatics business that is thé way of finding compounds. For the excessive long ones, generally noone will search for them, but for the shorter ones people probably will.  And if you want to quickly make a drawing in a software package - some do convert InChI's to molecules, so you have a quick starting point.  --Dirk Beetstra T  C 09:30, 27 October 2011 (UTC)


 * I just saw this and it does look terrible. While I might hinder a probably hypothetical metadata-searching script, the human reader has to come first, so I'm going to try putting this data into a note (per Footnote) and see what happens. Wnt (talk) 18:27, 7 January 2012 (UTC)
 * While doing this I noticed that the StdInChI code doesn't appear, and doesn't show up as a note - but it didn't appear in the page-wide infobox before I submitted the edit. I don't think I'll chase down this issue right now because it seems unrelated to the display problem. Wnt (talk) 18:37, 7 January 2012 (UTC)  Hmmm, looking at it again, it was displaying only the StdInChI information, as the "InChI" column.  I have no idea what's going on with this template so I took the stuff out of it completely and put it down in its own section by hand so it would actually display, and gave it an actual reference rather than a check mark.  I'm sure the system was supposed to be very clever and it is designed to resist all human tampering with anything short of a sledge hammer, so that's what I gave it.  I'm actually surprised the template didn't suppress display of the picture just to punish me for removing the InChI column. Wnt (talk) 19:03, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

POV issues
I took out the malarky about "now that we live in a sanitized environment" (hint: we don't), some improper punctuation, hyperbolic statements, and the two links to a couple MDs with axes to grind that really stretch their references to come to their conclusions. If you want to use their reference articles, use their reference articles, but their personal websites boil down to opinion. 65.27.134.29 (talk) 02:28, 19 March 2012 (UTC)Ubiquitousnewt

Plant sources of Vitamin B12
The section on food sources of Vitamin B12 seems to imply that lacto-ovo vegetarians will not get Vitamin B12 deficiency but vegans will. However, I believe that there ARE plant sources of Vitamin B12, such as aloe vera. ACEOREVIVED (talk) 10:38, 27 June 2012 (UTC)
 * You can believe whatever you want, but if you want to put that aloe vera is a source of B12, you need to provide a cite to a study that has found it there. This would be the first known case of a plant making B12, so it should win somebody a big science prize. S  B Harris 00:33, 28 June 2012 (UTC)

Well, this website -  http://www.vrg.org/nutrition/b12.htm#reliable  -  the website of the Vegetarian Resources group  - does say that a number of vegan sources of Vitamin B12 are known. You can read what they are on the website. ACEOREVIVED (talk) 19:27, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

The vegan sources of bioavailable B12, including nutritional yeast, that the website mentions receive their bioavailable B12 content through the addition by man of factory-produced B12. It's essentially like mixing a B12 tablet supplement into food. The Vegan Society states that there are no known plant-based sources of naturally-occurring bioavailable B12 that can prevent B12 deficiency. They strongly recommend that every vegan consumes either B12 supplements or B12 fortified foods. For more on this subject consult the "Dietary sources" section of the Wikipedia article on vitamin B12 deficiency. It includes numerous citations to support its claims.Ctconnolly (talk) 12:05, 4 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Indeed, one of the better lit reviews on this topic is at http://www.veganhealth.org/b12/plant. The site isn't WP RS but so far I have yet to find a thorough recent one that is. This article is getting cluttered now with cites to primary lit that are unacceptable. Somebody finds a corrinoid in laver or chlorella but they didn't use the gold standard human MMA reduction assay that is our only really reliable clinical gold standard. Or did. But saw zip! This is not worthy of this article. The only vegan foods that are reliable sources of B12 (bio active in humans by definition) are those cheap pills of B12 you buy in stores, or vegan foods fortified with same. S  B Harris 06:55, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

William M. Connolley's Reverts
I'm starting this discussion to find out if William M. Connolley has any real justification for his recent reverts. All he notes in his reverts is that he is reverting to a time prior to "DMZR," which is me. Does that seem overtly personal to anyone else? If William M. Connelley has an issue with particular content, he should according to Wiki guidelines take the issue Talk rather than engage in repeated reverts. Any substantial issues you want to discuss, William M. Connolley? — Preceding unsigned comment added by David Martin Zeegen Roth (talk • contribs)
 * It's not just William M. Connolley's reverts, it's pretty much everyone's but yours. SummerPhD, Jim1138, Sbharris, and I all reverted you.  Trying to make bad-faith accusations about William M. Connelley does not hide the obvious fact that your edits were against consensus, and that the Wikipedia community believes that your edits are undue weighted primary sourced based original research.
 * The real question is, is there any justification for your edits after that? Asking William M. Connolley to restate what several editors ahve already told you is rather rude, honestly.
 * But just to go over it as clearly as possible one more time: you need to use a secondary or tertiary academic or journalistic source by a medical or scientific professional, and must not make any statements not explicitly included in the source. You cannot use new age websites as sources.  You cannot reach conclusions that the source does not state.  You cannot use one study involving a few dozen people to claim that all scientists believe something. Ian.thomson (talk) 18:51, 12 December 2012 (UTC)
 * I don't have much to add to Ian's explanation. William's reverts are enforcing the consensus here: There are no natural vegan sources of B12. Until we have reliable sources to the contrary or considerable discussion documenting a new consensus to the contrary, there is nothing more to really say here. I would add, however, that there are numerous other articles trying to press this same bit of nonsense so critical to the "veganism in natural" battle. - Sum mer PhD  (talk) 23:45, 12 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes. Sorry, but you cannot just name every source of B12 that seems to pass some bacterial assay and some immuno-assay in the blood, as the B12 from spirulina does both those things, but is pseudo-B12. The gold standard for B12 activity is enzymatic activity in a mammal. Most people demand to see this in humans, but I think rat evidence is good quality at least for mentioning here. However, it cannot be used to make general recommendations for people. Rather, rat coenzyme activty (as we see from Pleurochrysis and Porphyra) is a good clue that these seaweeds will eventually be found to be B12 sources for people (at least when fresh). We can mention that one group each has found rat activty, but only as something that needs to be confirmed and followed up, not some basis of general medical recommendation. We do not give general medical recommendations for humans based on ONE unconfirmed Japanese study in rats. Personally I think the Japanese are on to something, but it's just not ready for prime time, as noted. So I'm moving it down to the "ongoing research" section where it can be mentioned, and deleting it once again from the general statements. Evidence here is just not that strong. There is NOTHING in science that doesn't need confirmation by at least one other group. There is NO rat study that doensn't need a good human trial before we believe its results. Okay? S  B Harris 03:27, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

Human body itself as a source of B12 for human beings?
Can anyone provide scientific evidence through methylmalonic-acid testing of long-term, supplement-free vegans that the human body itself can create nutritional B12 for use by the human body in the absence of animal products and B12 supplements? If not, then perhaps such research and theories, if included at all, should be placed in an "ongoing research" section that exists separately from the section discussing scientifically proven sources of B12 for the purposes of human nutrition. To suggest, however obliquely, that any human being can rely solely on the creative capacities of their own bodies, without consuming animal products or B12 supplements, to meet their nutritional requirements for B12 is ethically questionable because it is scientifically unproven and the damage that could be done to an individual's health by living out such suggestions to the point of B12 deficiency is immense. Respectfully, and in a cooperative and collegial spirit.Ctconnolly (talk) 03:07, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

Delete Section on "Cultured Tea"
"Certain makers of kombucha cultured tea list vitamin B12 as naturally present in their product. One brand purports to contain 20% of the daily value of B12 in a single bottle,[72] making kombucha a potential "high" food source of B12. Because kombucha is produced by a symbiosis between yeast and bacteria, the possibility that kombucha contains B12 does not contradict current knowledge. But no scientific studies have yet been published confirming the fact, nor whether the B12 in kombucha is the biologically active B12."

If a company makes a claim, and there is no science to back it up, then it's advertising and marketing and not appropriate for wikipedia. And it's not a "fact" if there is no science to back it up, which makes the statement a very clever NPOV issue. Implicit is the "fact" that the companies tea has B12, and the only thing for "science" to do is "confirm" it. Nice bit of marketing. Also no citation.Jonny Quick (talk) 16:09, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

Is Joseph Mercola misleading?
Joe Mercola states on his website that B12 made from anything other than animal products is useless.

I haven't seen this anywhere else.

Mercola is dead against vegetarianism. I get the feeling he is incorrect about B12, to put it mildly.

Any thoughts?

Incidentally my estimation of old Joe has gone down a lot of late. He seems to be just out to make money.Fletcherbrian (talk) 16:33, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

No s**t, as animal-based, plant-based, and even artificial (if you are bothered making some) vitamin B-12 is biologically identical. And, as his article states he believes in magnetic healing, physic powers and homeopathy, and the FDA registering 3 complaints prior to 2012, it is worrying that you doubt him only now. Just saying. 180.200.154.96 (talk) 01:45, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

Deleted section on management of allergies
I removed the section about high doses of B12 for the treatment of allergies. The reference was broken, and an almost verbatim copy of this was also on the Rhinitis page, also with broken and non existent references. The only evidence that can be found for this is the same sentence posted around the internet on sites selling high dose B12 shots for not only allergies, but autism, etc. --CandleInTheDark (talk) 00:23, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

All vegetarians are not all vegans
Be more careful in your language. A vegetarian drinks milk, eats cheese, yoghurt, etc. A vegan is a term used for those who avoid dairy and meat. There is more B12 in a vegetarian diet than any human will ever need. (also, incidentally, any B12 that sneaks into a vegan diet -- which it always will, through bacteria -- will be more efficiently taken up by the more efficient digestive system of most vegans. Meat-eaters have very poor digestion and so need a ton of B12.) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.63.50.134 (talk) 21:33, 29 May 2015 (UTC)

error? / poor grammar?
If anyone is in the know or is willing to find out what is meant in this sentence (in Section Controversial_sources_in_algae") please correct: "no study in rats of any algal B12 source has yet to be confirmed by a second independent study." (I checked earlier versions and it seems this has been there at least since 2013.) --Geke (talk) 11:56, 30 December 2015 (UTC)
 * I've corrected the grammar, but it is still in need of a source: "...no study in rats of any algal B12 source has yet been confirmed by a second independent study." - Sum mer PhD v2.0 17:57, 30 December 2015 (UTC)