Vitamin B12 deficiency can resemble symptoms of many diseases. Most often it causes anemia, but in some cases the symptoms of vitamin B12 deficiency can mimic mental illness. How do you recognize the signs of a vitamin B12 deficiency in your body and what are its causes? What can a cobalamin deficiency cause? What are the best sources of vitamin B12 and how do I supplement vitamin B12 deficiencies? B12?

Vitamin B deficiency12causes symptoms of the hematopoietic system , digestive and nervous systems, as well as symptoms that suggest mental disorders.

Causes of vitamin B12 deficiency

The causes of vitamin B12 deficiency include:

  • vitamin B deficiency12in everyday food (e.g. vegetarian diet)
  • Congenital deficiency or abnormalities of Castl's internal factor
  • condition after gastrectomy, i.e. complete or almost complete gastric resection as a result of surgery, e.g. after gastric wall perforation by an ulcer
  • atrophic gastritis
  • intestinal diseases with malabsorption syndrome
  • Crohn's disease
  • condition after ileal resection (this section is where the absorption of vitamin B takes place12 )
  • increased consumption of vitamin B12in the course of infections with tapeworm - broad knotworm
  • bacterial overgrowth
  • chronic pancreatitis
  • Zollinger-Ellison syndrome
  • transcobalamin II deficiency
  • celiakia
  • in people suffering from obesity - the state after the so-called bariatric surgeries of the switch-off type, i.e. those which result in limiting the absorbent surface of the gastrointestinal tract, shorter transit time (passage) of the food content through the intestines and less contact of the content with digestive enzymes, which reduces the absorption of nutrients from food.
  • In the elderly, the most common cause of vitamin B12 deficiency is deficiency in its absorption from food.
  • Vitamin B deficiency12may also be caused by the use of certain medications, such as metformin, nitrous oxide, colchicine, p-aminosalicylic acid, acetylsalicylic acid, sulfasalazine, proton pump inhibitors (omeprazole , pantoprazole, lansoprazole), histamine H2 receptor antagonists (cimetidine, ranitidine).

See: the most annoyingvitamin B12 deficiency symptoms

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Vitamin B deficiency symptoms12in the body

The most common symptoms of vitamin B deficiency12 , resulting from disorders of the hematopoietic system, manifested by anemia.Symptomsdeficiency vitamins B12also apply to disorders in the digestive and nervous systems. In the latter case, neurological disorders result from the demyelination of the nerves of the spinal cord and the cerebral cortex.Vitamin B12 deficiencyand folate also cause symptoms that appear in the course of psychiatric illnesses.Check for signs of vitamin B12 deficiency.

Hematopoietic system - symptoms:

  • pale yellow-lemon skin with vitiligo outbreaks
  • painful ulcers at the corners of the mouth
  • weakness
  • headaches and dizziness

Digestive system - symptoms:

  • loss of taste
  • baking the tongue, the so-called "buffalo tongue", smooth, shiny
  • loss of appetite - aversion to meat and fried foods is characteristic
  • lose weight
  • nausea
  • diarrhea
  • constipation

Nervous system - symptoms:

  • paresthesia (tingling, numbness) in the arms and legs
  • Lhermitte symptom - feeling of the current going along the spine when tilting the head forward
  • sticking the fingertips
  • loss of vibration and deep feeling (sense of orientation)
  • gait instability
  • visual impairment (as a result of optic nerve atrophy)
  • seizures

Psychic - symptoms:

  • depressive disorder
  • psychomotor restlessness
  • hypomanic syndromes (hypomania) - a state of excessively elevated mood
  • personality changes, behavior
  • psychotic disorders - megaloblastic madness
  • mild memory impairment
  • cognitive impairment - from mild to dementia (dementia)
Worth knowing

The symptoms of vitamin B12 deficiency may resemble those of mental illness

There are known acute psychoses, the image of which is dominated by visual hallucinations that do not respond to treatment with drugs used in psychiatry. Acute psychotic syndromes usually appear in the case of long-term or severe vitamin B deficiency12 . Therefore, in the case of the first episode of mania in an elderly person, diagnostics should always take into account vitamin B deficiency12 .

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