Why is B12 deficiency more common now?

I have a theory.  Now I must tell you that I’m not a doctor and have no medical qualifications so I can’t advise you; but I can share my experience.  In the past, Caucasians (white Europeans and colonists) got our B12 from meat.  People living nearer the equator had more vegetables in their diet, so if they weren’t really efficient at “scavenging” B12 – recycling it very efficiently, they died and were out of the gene pool, but Caucasians were under less pressure (if they didn’t have enough meat, starvation was a more important problem than the lack of B12) so now around 40% of the population has less efficient B12 recycling.  This means that we need B12 in the diet probably every day.

B12 is manufactured by bacteria in the guts of ruminant animals (cows, sheep) and in the guts of some other animals (eg rabbits and rats get their B12 by coprophagy – actually humans have the same bacteria but we don’t eat our own stools – see Gruesome facts on our web site!).  So we get our B12 by eating meat.  But cattle used to be slaughtered for the table at 36 months, after they had had plenty of time to get B12 into the muscle, whereas they are now slaughtered at more like 13 months.  The food they eat may not have enough Cobalt – without cobalt the bacteria can’t manufacture B12.  The result is, 90% of the world’s manufactured B12 is injected into farm animals to help them grow, and profit-conscious farmers are only going to inject enough to ensure the animal grows, not a whole lot extra so it can be stored in the meat for the human consumer.

Added to this, the meat is passed through microwaves on the way through the abattoir so that it keeps better.  B12 is a very strong molecule but about the only things that destroy it are microwaves and UV light; when you warm your food in a microwave you can say goodbye to the B12, but it was probably already destroyed well before it got to your freezer.

We go a whole stage further in our efforts to be sick.  We diet.  We take antacids and PPIs which prevent the stomach digesting the food, so B12 from meat sources isn’t freed up to be absorbed.  We add gastric bands and GI surgery.This means that more people than ever before have less B12 in their diet.  The 60% who are still highly efficient with B12 can probably manage on this small amount, but the rest of us need additional supplies; some of us have developed real difficulties absorbing B12 (probably as a result of B12 deficiency which can cause autoimmune diseases such as the development of parietal cell antibodies and IF antibodies) so we need it by injection.  Once you find out that injections solve your problems, you might want to try experimenting using oral treatment – methylcobalamin tablets for instance in case this is sufficient for you.  I function much better with injections, but if I set my sights low (ie was prepared to put up with poor memory and tiredness) then I’m sure I could get by on tablets