FusionHalo Posted January 24, 2012 Report Share Posted January 24, 2012 I've been practicing CR for a little over a year now (it was my 2010 New Years Resolution). I have been supplementing with Chlorella and Spirulina to meet my b12 RDA. I recently came across many articles that claimed that these were not adequate sources of b12, both because they were lacking in b12 altogether, and some of the b12 they did contain tended to be forms that weren't biologically active. I'm currently assessing my need for b12, and where to obtain it from in my diet (I don't eat meat, dairy, or grains). Apparently the main need for b12 is to reduce homocysteine levels in the blood, by having it converted to methionine. However, there seems to be a secondary pathway that can obtain this same effect by using betaines. One common form of betaine found in food is known as trimethylglycine, which can be obtained from spinach, quinoa, beet, and other chenopods. My question is this, is there a need to supplement with b12? If so, where can I obtain it naturally from my diet (I'd rather not take pills)? If not, how much betain is necessary in the diet to adequately lower homosysteine levels? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Jenni Posted January 26, 2012 Report Share Posted January 26, 2012 I think that mushrooms are the only non-animal source of B12. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
keithsct Posted February 12, 2012 Report Share Posted February 12, 2012 See these videos for studies warning about Chlorella and Spirulina: http://nutritionfacts.org/videos/update-on-spirulina-2/ http://nutritionfacts.org/videos/latest-on-blue-green-alge/ The advice I've heard is to get your B12 from fortified foods or supplements. You need both B12 and folate to keep homocystine low, so make sure you're getting RDA on both. Sorry, don't know about betain. Cheers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael R Posted February 20, 2012 Report Share Posted February 20, 2012 You absolutely do need vitamin B12: it's needed for several purposes, of which the detoxification of homocysteine is only one: notably, it's required for teh remyelination of nerves. There are absolutely no natural, plant-based foods that contain vitamin B12. You must get it from animal foods, or from supplements -- or from feces. The colonic bacteria do produce B12, but unfortunately, we absorb almost none of it: they’re making the stuff for their own use and not ours, and they live much further down in the GI tract than the major site for B12 absorption (the distal ileum), so it passes through us – and, sometimes, traces of it remain on crops where it’s been used as fertilizer. The B12-like compounds (corrinoids) present in mushrooms, many bacteria (including the ones used to ferment tempeh), many cyanobacteria (such as Spirulina ), and some seaweeds carry out some of the same functions as B12 for those organisms, but are useless for mammals; unfortunately, their close chemical resemblance to mammalian B12 tricks the standard USP method of food analysis, leading to erroneous reporting of its presence. (1) Because of this, nonsupplementing vegans are often frankly deficient in B12, and despite the vitamin’s presence in eggs and dairy products, even ovolacto vegetarians’ functional B12 status tends to be poor. As a result, nearly all major vegetarian advocacy and support organizations and authors of books on vegetarian nutrition are now emphasizing the danger of frank B12 deficiency, especially in vegetarians, and the need for a supplement. References Herbert V. Vitamin B-12: plant sources, requirements, and assay. Am J Clin Nutr. 1988 Sep;48(3 Suppl):852-8. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
harryc Posted February 24, 2012 Report Share Posted February 24, 2012 How do you account for the millions of healthy Hindus, a few of whom I know, who have never eaten any meat? Is the dairy they consume adequate to supply B12? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Lusya Posted February 24, 2012 Report Share Posted February 24, 2012 Vitamin B12 is simply necessary in every human being, you must find out the daily dose, that's it. Hello from Russia. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Padraig Hogan Posted February 27, 2012 Report Share Posted February 27, 2012 In the wild, sufficient vitamin B12 is found on just-picked fruit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael R Posted February 27, 2012 Report Share Posted February 27, 2012 How do you account for the millions of healthy Hindus, a few of whom I know, who have never eaten any meat? Is the dairy they consume adequate to supply B12? Depends how much dairy. Eg. this study of South Asians in Toronto, Canada (some of whom of course will be Muslims, or Christians, or atheist, or just not adherent Hindus) found that "B12 results were documented in 49% of charts; 46% of results showed deficiency. Patients older than 65 and vegetarians were more likely to be B12 deficient." This study in rural and urban Indians finds that Overall, 67% of men had low vitamin B12 concentration (<150 pmol/L) and 58% had hyperhomocysteinemia (>15 µmol/L). Of the urban middle class, 81% had low vitamin B12 concentration and 79% had hyperhomocysteinemia. Low vitamin B12 concentration contributed 28% to the risk of hyperhomocysteinemia (population attributable risk) while low red cell folate contributed 2%. Vegetarians had 4.4 times (95%CI 2.1, 9.4) higher risk of low vitamin B12 concentrations and 3.0 times (95%CI 1.4, 6.5) higher risk of hyperhomocysteinemia compared to those who ate non-vegetarian foods frequently. ... Low vitamin B12 concentration was related to lower blood haemoglobin concentration and higher mean corpuscular volume, but macrocytic anemia was rare. And this study reported that while It is often advocated that a vegetarian lifestyle could reduce the burden of CAD. However, in spite of a majority of Indians being vegetarians, the incidence of CAD is highest in this population. This may be due to deficiency of vitamin B12, a micronutrient, sourced only from animal products. Herein, we assessed the effect of vitamin B12 with respect to CAD in 816 individuals (368 CAD patients and 448 controls) recruited from a tertiary care center in New Delhi, India. We found that vitamin B12 levels were significantly lower in CAD patients than in controls (p<0.0001). Also, vegetarians were found to have significantly lower vitamin B12 concentrations (p=0.0001) and higher incidence of CAD (p=0.01). And studies in the Jains, eg, who don't even eat dairy, found that they were getting it because of fecal contamination on teh soil of the plants from which they were eating. In the wild, sufficient vitamin B12 is found on just-picked fruit. Only if an elephant just shat on the plant from which you picked it ;) . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
harryc Posted February 27, 2012 Report Share Posted February 27, 2012 Depends how much dairy. Eg. this study of South Asians in Toronto, Canada (some of whom of course will be Muslims, or Christians, or atheist, or just not adherent Hindus) found that "B12 results were documented in 49% of charts; 46% of results showed deficiency. Patients older than 65 and vegetarians were more likely to be B12 deficient." This study in rural and urban Indians finds that And this study reported that while And studies in the Jains, eg, who don't even eat dairy, found that they were getting it because of fecal contamination on teh soil of the plants from which they were eating. Only if an elephant just shat on the plant from which you picked it ;) . Thanks! A great and helpful answer both citing the studies and explaining the B12 in fruit. It's hard to deny that humans, bears and dogs, who are happy to get B12 from kitty litter, have evolved as omnivores. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Padraig Hogan Posted February 28, 2012 Report Share Posted February 28, 2012 Only if an elephant just shat on the plant from which you picked it ;) . I do enjoy your colourful rhetoric sometimes Michael Rae, but as you know that isn't true: http://www.veganforum.com/forums/showthread.php?6856-Where-exactly-does-Vitamin-B12-come-from And it just wouldn't make evolutionary sense to be in a continual state of Russian Roulette with vitamin b12 status. There isn't any strong instinct to eat animal products, I don't really have any. Even though other great apes do eat animal protein, they don't have any terrible drive to. Of course Vegan societies steer clear of saying it's okay not to intake vitamin b12, they don't want people dying because of the advice of their society. And most people don't have access to just-picked fruit. They say that making vitamin b12 in humans is "unreliable". Well, remember that vegans and vegetarians often have ridiculous diets. So you can only imagine some of the stuff going on in their guts..... and it's no wonder that in those cases it may not work properly and can be viewed as "unreliable" as a general rule for everyone. Though I probably wouldn't bet my life on it even if I were living in optimal circumstances. The dangers of an extreme deficiency in some nutrient (in modern society where food is being increasingly butchered), is enough for me to occasionally take a comprehensive multivitamin, as for me occasionally being slightly over the mark in a few nutrients is much better than being critically under it in any. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael R Posted February 28, 2012 Report Share Posted February 28, 2012 I do enjoy your colourful rhetoric sometimes Michael Rae, but as you know that isn't true: http://www.veganforum.com/forums/showthread.php?6856-Where-exactly-does-Vitamin-B12-come-from Your source is using selective quoting. Their discussion of B12 production by colonic bacteria neglects to mention that this B12 isn't absorbable, as their reference (Herbert) goes on to explain: What is the role of intestinal bacteria above the colon in vitamin B-l2 absorption? We have seen that the 5 µg of vitamin B-l2 made by colon bacteria per 24 h is of little, if any, value to individuals unless they ingest some of their own feces because vitamin B-12 is not absorbed across the colon mucosa. If by 'getting it from just-picked fruit in the wild,' you simply mean that there might be adventitious traces of it in the dirt, without a direct and obvious act of defecation, I'll agree; my point was that absent fecal contamination, the levels of bacteria-derived B12 found on plants in the wild cannot plausibly be sufficient to avert B12 deficiency. And it just wouldn't make evolutionary sense to be in a continual state of Russian Roulette with vitamin b12 status. Er... kind of like every other essential nutrient ...? There isn't any strong instinct to eat animal products, I don't really have any. Even though other great apes do eat animal protein, they don't have any terrible drive to. Whatever your insight into the 'instincts' and 'terrible drives' of the great apes might be, in practice most nonhuman primate species including apes are omnivorous. (And, in fact, wild, naive primates prefer cooked meat to raw). More importantly, human hunter-gatherers uniformly are and have been, irrespective of what our evolutionary cousins might do. No one claims you have to gorge on meat to get your B12. 100 g of raw beef liver contains almost four weeks' worth of B12, which as most folks know is stored in the liver rather than peed out when not used immediately. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
namalev Posted June 18, 2012 Report Share Posted June 18, 2012 What Michael R is saying is correct. There are many things to say about B12, but these would be the base: B12 is stored in the liver. If you live as an omnivore it is enough to eat meat every once in a while if you eat the liver of the animal you have hunted down and killed. (which we probably did in our hunter society). It may take a few years before you see you are getting to little B12. Animals not eating B12 gets B12 in different ways from bacterias. Bunnies: They eat their own poo (once) to get the B12 which is created in the lower parts of the intestine. Cows: They eat their own puke (also to be able to use long chains of alpha-glucose) However, don't try this at home, bunnies and rabbits does this because they happen to have bacterias in their guts which can produce B12. Basically NO animal have any nutritional absorption in the lower tracts. Except water and adding our own waste products for the bacterias to breed upon. When it comes to inactive B12: If you eat inactive B12 this can inhibit your absorbency of active B12. Different types of B12 supplements: The most common one contains a small amount of cyano-bi-products Most common supplement: cyanocobalamin. Not optimal, you have to have a high intake. Most optimal supplement: Methyl B-12. Optimal intake, can be used directly by the body and brain for both nerve cells and creation of red blood cells in the spine. Backside: Hard to find, hard to produce AND people take as high doses of it as if it would be cyanocobalamin. To much B-12 can increase cancer rates due to an excessive activity in red blood cell creation. Observe that this is much more uncommon than B-12 deficiency. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
prettyinpink Posted June 28, 2012 Report Share Posted June 28, 2012 Really? Mushroom is a good source of vitamin B12? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael R Posted June 28, 2012 Report Share Posted June 28, 2012 Really? Mushroom is a good source of vitamin B12? No: it is not a source of vitamin B12 at all. There are absolutely no natural, plant-based foods that contain vitamin B12. You must get it from animal foods, or from supplements -- or from feces. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paulgfoster Posted August 15, 2012 Report Share Posted August 15, 2012 Hi I have searched the archives regarding savoury yeast flakes which are readily available in Australia and produced in the Usa. Are these not recommended by Cronies as a means to supplement B vitamins and particularly B12. Just wondered as they add great flavour but i have been unable to find anything either positive or negative about them Paul ps I have found out the product is marketed under different names in different countries and known as "nooch", or "yeshi," in the Usa. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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