Vitamin B12 does a lot of things for your body. It helps make your DNA and your red blood cells, for example. Since your body doesn’t make vitamin B12, you have to get it from animal-based foods or from supplements.
How Much To Get?
The answer depends on things including your age, your eating habits and medical conditions, and what medications you take.
2. May Prevent Major Birth Defects
Adequate vitamin B12 levels are crucial to a healthy pregnancy. Studies show that a fetus’s brain and nervous system require sufficient B12 levels from the mother to develop properly.
Vitamin B12 deficiency in the beginning stages of pregnancy may increase the risk of birth defects, such as neural tube defects. For women with a vitamin B12 deficiency and levels below 150 mg/dL the risk was five times higher, compared to women with levels above 400 mg/dL
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How Much Vitamin B12 Do I Need?
The amount of vitamin B12 a person needs steadily increases as they age:
Older individuals may want to up their vitamin B12 intake.
B12 can be supplemented in four ways, says Taylor Graber, MD, physician and owner of ASAP IVs, a mobile IV hydration and wellness company:
Orally, through eating foods rich in vitamin B12 Taking a B12 supplement Injected into the muscle Through an IV drip
As vitamin B12 is found naturally in animal-based food products, vegetarians and vegans may not get enough of it in their diet and require supplements. Vitamin B12 deficiency symptoms and causes
Between 1.5% and 15% of the general population is vitamin B12 deficient. Your small intestine helps absorb B12 with help from a substance secreted by the stomach known as intrinsic factor.
This makes people with certain health conditions more susceptible to B12 deficiency. “Without intrinsic factor, the free vitamin B12 in the digestive tract is unable to be absorbed,” says Graber. People with Crohn’s Disease, or complications due to intestine shortening from surgeries are often at risk of vitamin B12 deficiency, says Graber.
That said, there can still be side effects of excess intake. These symptoms include headaches, anxiety, and nausea. Vitamin supplements, such as B12, have previously been reported to interact with medicines and supplements, like colchicine and vitamin C supplements.