Notes on Vitamin-B12 Deficiency

      I have published a long paper, a chapter in a book on anti-aging medicine, and a long letter on the psychiatric manifestations of vitamin B12 deficiency (1991, 1996a & b) and was the published 'expert' in a long 'The Expert Speaks' interview published in the March 1998 issue of Clinical Pearls News, a nutritional and preventive medicine abstracts journal. (Dommisse) In all these publications I mention the review article from St Louis that shows which are the commonest psychiatric syndromes caused by this vitamin deficiency: mood disorders; dementia; paranoid psychosis; and violent behavior (Zucker et al, 1981).

      Various authors have documented the psychotic (Hart/ McCurdy) , depressive (MacCallum), and consecutive affective and psychotic conditions in the same patient (Verbanck/ LeBon). Drs Levitt and Joffe, working at the Clarke Institute of Psychiatry in Toronto (where I trained, years earlier), published a report about vitamin B12 deficiency causing the psychotic form of depression, in the British Journal of Psychiatry in 1988 (Levitt/ Joffe). They also reviewed the medical literature and found that psychotic depression is more often caused by B12 deficiency than by any other known or unknown cause. This fact is hardly ever borne in mind when psychiatrists confront a case of psychotic depression and, when they do think of it and order a serum B12 level, they will more often than not still miss the deficiency because the lab "normal range" is so low that their patient's B12 level almost always appears to be in the "normal range".

      At least six neurological and psychiatric papers, in top medical journals, have shown that the normal range should be regarded as at least 500-1,300 pg/ml (rather than 200-1,100), since the cerebrospinal fluid level can be deficient when the serum level drops below 500, and neuropsychiatric symptoms often occur at serum levels between 200 and 500 pg/ml (VanTiggelen et al, Lindenbaum et al, Mitsuyama/Kogoh, Nijst et al, Ikeda et al, Regland). As for the still held misconception that the neuropsychiatric effects of B12 deficiency are always accompanied by a macrocytic anemia, it is humbling to know that this notion was already debunked in 1905 (Langdon)! Since then, many papers have stressed this point, including those by Strachan and Henderson (1965), Evans et al (1983) and Lindenbaum et al (1988).

The Multi-Generational Aspects:
      Whenever illnesses strike across the generations in a single family, the temptation or fear exists to regard this illness as genetic and therefore incurable. However, it is wise to keep in mind that patterns of eating, diet and malabsorption of nutrients also run in families and that these abnormalities are fairly easily curable with a nutritional medical approach. And Jeff Bland, PhD, of Gig Harbor, WA, has demonstrated how nutritioneering can influence and modify one's gene structure.

B12 Treatment: Injections, or Lozenges, or Nasal Gel:
      While many patients have done well on a lifelong schedule of B12 'shots', it should be borne in mind that it has been proven that the very high dose lozenges (2,000/ 2,500 mcg), taken after one or two meals daily, are just as efficacious at maintaining the serum B12 level in the ideal range (Berlin et al, Berlin, Dommisse '91, Lederle, Hathcock/ Troendle). A nasal gel preparation has also been found to be capable of maintaining ideal serum B12 levels (Hathcock/Troendle; Dommisse '91), despite some negative views about this (Tufts U NsLtr).

      It is important to realize that treating disease by identifying the root cause and then treating it with a natural substance is not only an 'alternative' way of approaching the condition (vs. treating it purely symptomatically, with medications) but is a far superior method because it actually cures the condition, as long as the missing natural element is then provided. There are also no side effects, and other potential effects of the deficiency are then also prevented.

      For the exact reproduction of my long 1991 published article in the journal Medical Hypotheses, see the Natural Medicine Letter #9 (Vol. 5, No. 1) near the end of the Secure Order Page, near the end of this website.

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