Some days back I was constantly feeling a little irritable and was feeling completely sapped of energy.The "Monday-morning- blues" feeling was a constant companion and then I thought I might be having anemia. One of my doctor friends suggested that I should get a haemogram done . While I was leaving her clinic something also prompted her to say " get your serum B12 also checked Pls" Clearly i went ahead to do both the tests and got some alarming results.
My haemogram was within a perfect normal range but my B12 levels were riding at an all time low alarming levels...............
I am now taking a multi vitamin and making sure that am including something very common to each house hold and important to replenish the B12 in my diet but something which i was convieniently trying to avoid everyday........ MILK
I also thought that I should share an article written by one of my students, Ashuta Gundecha, on this very subject............ What follows is the same article written by her, unedited and in her own words.........
Are u Vitamin B12 deficient???
A Jain diet is based on the fact that a simple natural diet will help keep their mind pure and peaceful . This diet necessarily means a vegetarian diet including sattvic foods.
In Jainism, foods can be classified into 3 categories:
Sattvic food includes fresh fruits, fruit juices, vegetables, cereals, whole grains, legumes, lentils, milk, nuts and seeds. These foods keeps the body in a peaceful state, calms mind, enabling it to function at full potential.
Rajasic food includes spices, herbs, coffee, tea, fish, eggs ,salt and chocolate. These foods are said to be stimulating , making mind restless and uncontrollable.
Tamasic food includes meat ,alcohol ,tobacco ,fermented foods, overripe foods. These foods are destructive to mind ,makes person greedy. These foods destroy body’s resistance to disease.
Now worldwide it is being proved that vegetarian diet which includes sattvic foods is the best form of diet.
BUT the question arises ,are all the nutrients required for good health present in vegetarian food?
The answer is YES!! BUT if the person eating vegetarian food does not include milk and milk products , he might be deficient in one of the important B complex vitamins- VITAMIN B12 !! Vitamin B12 is needed for building proteins in body , formation of blood cells and normal function of nervous tissue. A person might develop anemia if he/she is vitamin B12 deficient.
Vitamin B12 is required in following amounts:
(ICMR -Indian council of medical research Vitamin B12 content of foods:
Recommendations) Values per 100g of edible portion
GROUP Vitamin B12 mcg/day
Man 1.0
Woman 1.0
Pregnancy 1.0
Lactation 1.5 (mother breastfeeding her child)
Infants 0.2
Children 0.2-1.0 (1-18 years)
Foods Vitamin B12 mcg/day
Milk(buffalo’s) 0.14
Milk (cow’s) 0.14
Curd (buffalo’s milk) 0.13
Curd (cow’s milk) 0.10
Skimmed milk powder 0.83
All vegetarians should ask themselves 2 questions to know if they are vitamin b12 deficient: Do I consume milk and/or milk products on regular basis??
Do I suffer from any of the symptoms like sleeplessness, dizziness, red tongue, sore tongue, numbness of hands and legs, difficulty in walking, weight loss, diarrhea??
If your answer to the previous question is NO and later question YES, then u might be vitamin B12 deficient.
Thus its important for vegetarians to consume dairy products(milk and milk products on daily basis). Also special care should be taken by mothers breastfeeding their child as the requirement of vit B12 rises in them. Even infants if breastfed for long duration i.e more than 6 months without giving top feeds may develop vitamin B12 deficiency.
-Plain milk, curd, buttermilk.
-Buttermilk, kadhi.
-Milkshakes, fruit salads ,kheer.
-Paneer sabji, paneer paratha, paneer rolls.etc.
So when all the foods included in sattvic diet are included by vegetarians, they would be able to live a healthy life!!! I have learned my new lesson now, having my glassfull of milk everyday and already on the way of recovery!!!!
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13 comments:
More than gaining B12 i feel it is important to enrich our diet with folic acid which helps proper absorption B12.
Best source of folic acid is 'unpolished rice'
"Salichya lahya" too is a great source of this folic acid.
Drinking milk is fine ..... but there is no other animal in the world who goes and drink some one elses milk.
Avoid drinking milk. Human beings loose ability to digest milk after age of 3 up to 6
Excellent article from you Shraddha as usual !!
It is surprising but true that many apparently normal individuals are showing vitamin B12 deficiency when tested. Vitamin B 12 deficiency in the absence of frank anemia is a known entity especially in elderly people but it may also be common in young people.
This may not be an actual increased prevalence of vitamin B 12 deficiency but rather because of increased awareness , easy access to pathological services and resultant testing.
We also should not forget that people with chronic atrophic gastritis can have vitamin B 12 deficiency inspite of adequate dietary intake because of problem in absorption.
Dr. Amol Javdekar
nice blog with good heading. Keep it up and keep on posting.
Aah... Now you realize what I had written in your blog over 6 months ago. Better late than never. Good job that you got Serum B12 tested
.
Vitamin B12 is very vital and 82% of urban population lacks (as was quoted by one of the leading news papers a week ago and 57% or rural population too lack in this.
The range is as noted in your serum B12 report from 206 - 850
If your levels are lower than 200, I would advice you to get 3 500 mcg MecoNeuron IM ingeections (mind you - these are intra muscular not intro veinous)- so you need to do a test before taking the first one to check if you have any reaction on the forearm.
This is also called as "Feel good" ingection by the way.
If you take the report to the doc, he will ask you when was the last time you had a glass of milk after you left school - since before that your mom would be dictating terms and giving a glass of milk everyday without fail.
No veg has this Vitamin inbuilt.
For non-veg lovers - they should eat white meat (fish/chicken) thoroughly cleaned and cooked with very less or no oil (use Olive oil if needed to control your LDL/HDL levels.
I know lot of people recommend liver/beef/pork as they contain high amount of B12, however it also contains high cholestrol. You dont want to end into another trap disarming the first one, hence they are not recommended.
Hope this helps.
Nice article. Recently I too have been tested B12 deficient. B12 level found was 189. My doctor precribed me meconeuron1500 tablets and some folic acid suplementary. I may raise my B12 level but how do I find the root cause of that and ensure I this would not happen in future. I eat non-veg too(once a week).
It is certainly interesting for me to read this article. Thanx for it. I like such topics and everything connected to them. I would like to read a bit more on that blog soon.
Hi Shraddha
Nice to have your blogs back!!
Sometimes due to an inherent problem with the procedure of estimating vitamin B 12 , it can come falsely low. To know whether vitamin B 12 is actually low, it is better to do a combination of serum vitamin B 12 and serum homocysteine. When serum vitamin B 12 decreases homocysteine rises and hence a high homocysteine value along with low vitamin B 12 indicates that the vitamin B 12 is low indeed.
Note : In the blog only vitamin B 12 contents in mcg have been mentioned in various food items without mentioning how much quantity of that food item.
Please rectify that.
Mine was way too low..71 was the count of b12 as good as nothing...
I also had b12 appr 90 and i took rejuneuron active inj thrice in a weekfor
2 month and today i tested b!2
Then it is above 2000 which is too exess
It is beyond the normal limit
What should i do?
I also had b12 appr 90 and i took rejuneuron active inj thrice in a weekfor
2 month and today i tested b!2
Then it is above 2000 which is too exess
It is beyond the normal limit
What should i do?
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