When is Alzheimer’s Disease NOT Alzheimer’s Disease? When it’s actually undiagnosed Vitamin B12 deficiency. Yet vitamin B12 deficiency- despite having identical symptoms in many cases- is almost never even considered as an alternate diagnosis- leaving tens of thousands suffering unnecessarily.

B12 Deficiency is a Problem in the Elderly

Alzheimer’s Disease is a growing personal and family problem as well as a HUGE financial burden for society. With a rising percentage of the population becoming senior citizens, and with those seniors living longer, Alzheimer’s Disease is becoming an ever growing crisis. There are over 4 million people in the US alone who have been diagnosed with this ‘incurable’ disease. Horribly, it leaves these seniors unable to remember even the simplest memories and completely dependent upon round-the-clock caregivers. While millions is being spent on research for drugs, stem cell treatment, genetic manipulation and pharmaceuticals to combat this growing problem, doctors in clinical practice are completely overlooking the scientific studies showing that at least some of these Alzheimer’s patients are suffering unnecessarily with simple vitamin B12 deficiency.

Vitamin B12 deficiency becomes more and more common as people get older. With some researchers estimating that over 800,000 elderly in the US have undiagnosed deficiency, this is NOT a small problem. Even worse is that few clinicians know about vitamin B12 deficiency or are trained to look for its symptoms. Many elderly who should be screened for this simple vitamin deficiency are, instead, diagnosed with ‘incurable’ diseases that rob them of any possible quality of life. That Mental Changes from B12 Deficiency can look EXACTLY like dementia was noted in 1902! Since then, this topic has been studied many times, and it has even been shown that CAT Scans and MRI’s that show lesions and degeneration of the brain and spinal cord are often REVERSIBLE when these lesions are caused by vitamin B12 deficiency! Yet, using these modern techniques, the presence of brain and spinal cord abnormalities is almost always used as evidence for patients and families of the Irreversible nature of their disease- when that is not necessarily the truth at all!

Then in 1956 researchers began to recognize these neurologic problems as EXTREMELY EARLY symptoms of vitamin B12 deficiency and that patients with dementia sometimes had dramatic reversals when treated with vitamin B12 early after their diagnosis. They also found that MANY of these cases that responded well to vitamin B12 therapy showed no abnormalities on blood tests at all. In other words, the researchers could find nothing CLINICALLY wrong with these patients, including Vitamin B12 deficiency, except for dementia! Yet 50 years later, doctors still rely EXCLUSIVELY on blood testing to determine the need for Vitamin B12 therapy. The number of patients who could potentially benefit from this therapy is NOT small. A two year study done at Abyad Medical Center and Middle-East Longevity Institute in Lebanon showed that Vitamin B12 Therapy improved the cognitive function in MORE THAN HALF of the patients with dementia who completed the study!

But doctors just are NOT reading these studies, and a trial regimen of high dose Methylcobalamin B12 Supplements that costs less than $100 is virtually NEVER instituted by doctors who use ‘evidence based medicine’ that requires them to have diagnostic studies to support their decisions. But this doesn’t take into account the evidence supporting a trial regimen of vitamin B12. With virtually no reported side effects or toxicities, this easy and inexpensive would DEFINITELY save at least SOME Alzheimer’s patients from complete destruction of their mind. But because we can’t PROVE who is going to benefit ahead of time, and we have a medical culture that prefers pharmaceuticals to nutrients, Alzheimer’s patients who could have benefited if B12 therapy was instituted soon after diagnosis are left with no memory and no hope.

Kerri Knox, RN- The Immune Health Queen
Functional Medicine Practitioner
Easy Immune Health.com

Usually, the presence of a condition called macrocytic anemia is what makes doctors suspect and begin to look for vitamin B12 Deficiency. But macrocytic anemia is the result of years of vitamin B12 deficiency. This means that until a doctor is willing to even LOOK FOR the easily correctable problem of vitamin B 12 deficiency, a patient will have suffered for years with symptoms that would have been prevented if they had looked for the deficiency based simply on one of the most common physical complaints that patients have- fatigue.

Fatigue is a problem that affects most of the population at one time or another, but when it becomes chronic it can seriously affect quality of life to the extent that they become disabled. While fatigue can have MANY different causes, one underappreciated cause of fatigue is Vitamin B 12 deficiency.

When a doctor suspects vitamin B12 deficiency, they will often do a routine blood test that checks for a condition called macrocytic anemia. Macrocytic anemia is characterized by particularly large red blood cells that are accompanied by a decreased Number of total cells. It is often a Consequence of vitamin B12 deficiency, but can have several other causes as well. Macrocytic anemia, however, is NOT vitamin B12 deficiency, and Vitamin B 12 deficiency can exist with or without the presence of macrocytic anemia. In fact, macrocytic anemia may not occur for up to 2 years after the Start of vitamin B12 deficiency, yet the ‘standard of care’ that doctors use has them look for vitamin B12 deficiency ONLY if macrocytic anemia is present!

“clinical features that are associated with
vitamin B12 deficiency may indeed precede
evidence of macrocytic anemia”
How B12 Deficiency Can Impact on the Individual…

If Vitamin B 12 deficiency were a rare problem that required expensive and invasive testing in order to find, this would be a reasonable way to look for this problem. But vitamin B12 deficiency is VERY common and testing is as easy as a simple blood test done right in the same lab that tests for macrocytic anemia! There is even a Vitamin B12 Urinary Test that is inexpensive and VERY accurate. In addition, just like other medical problems that are evaluated on their OWN signs and symptoms, vitamin b12 deficiency ALSO has its OWN signs and symptoms that can be evaluated in the same way.

Vitamin B12 deficiency has a whole list of common presenting features that include:

Fatigue
Brain fog
Weakness
Depression

People who go to the doctor with conditions such as Chronic Fatigue Syndrome often have these same symptoms, yet they are almost NEVER screened for this simple vitamin deficiency. Considering that there are over a million chronic fatigue sufferers in the US alone who are not getting help for their debilitating condition, there is no way of knowing how many people are suffering unnecessarily from a simple vitamin deficiency simply because doctors are not looking for it! The research study, Vitamin B12 (cobalamin) deficiency in elderly patients believes that more than 20% of elderly people in the United States have undiagnosed vitamin B12 deficiency- and that is just in ONE high risk group.

Besides Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, the somewhat vague symptoms of vitamin B12 deficiency can mimic many other diseases as well. According to Doctors Norbert Goebels and Michael Soyka, “Vitamin B(12) deficiency has long been associated with a wide variety of hematological, neurological, and psychiatric disorders.” Unfortunately, until doctors begin to look for Vitamin B12 deficiency and not macrocytic anemia, we are calling these problems things like:

Chronic Fatigue
Fibromyalgia
Dementia
Mental Illness
And Even Multiple Sclerosis

when many of these patients really should be diagnosed with simple vitamin B12 deficiency. Testing for vitamin B12 deficiency is the ‘standard of care’ for doctors ONLY in the case of macrocytic anemia EVEN when vitamin B12 deficiency is seemingly staring them right in the face. And because standard of care is a legal protection for doctors in court, most doctors are unlikely to go ‘outside of the box’ to try to find answers to patient problems.

Standards of care change slowly in the medical world; with clinical guidelines lagging scientific finding by years and even decades, things are not likely to change soon until people with illnesses become educated and DEMAND testing for these simple problems that can have DRAMATIC effects on their health and their quality of life.

But even easier than fighting for testing that your doctor may never be willing to do or spending money on tests, you could spend about $30 on a couple of bottles of Vitamin B12 Supplements, take two to three sprays a day and if you feel better, then you definitely have vitamin B12 deficiency, if you don’t then you either:

Need a higher dose

OR

You are NOT vitamin B12 deficient.

But for those people who ARE severely vitamin B12 Deficienct, sometimes DRAMATIC responses to vitamin B12 happen. If you are tired all the time, don’t let another day go by without either getting a Vitamin B12 test or doing a trial of High Dose Sublingual Vitamin B12 Supplements, you’ll be glad that you did!

Kerri Knox, RN- The Immune Health Queen
Functional Medicine Practitioner
Easy Immune Health.com