Reasons why you must add Vitamin B12 to your diet today

Vitamin B12, also known as cobalamin, is an essential water-soluble vitamin that is a must for the normal functioning of your brain and plays an important role in the formation of red blood cells and DNA in your body. You know? The metabolism of every cell in the body depends on vitamin B12? Yes, as it helps with the synthesis of fatty acids and energy production.

It is the structurally most complex and largest vitamin found naturally only in meat. Otherwise, you can get it in the form of dietary supplements, which are industrially produced by bacterial fermentation synthesis.

Your body can store vitamin B12 for up to four years, but if you avoid ingesting enough of it, your body will suffer irreversible and severe damage, especially to the nervous system and brain.

But what exactly is that sufficient amount to consume?

How much cobalamin you take will depend on a number of factors, including your age, your eating habits, and your medical condition.

Let’s look at how much you should take based on your age, measured in micrograms (mcg):

• 0-6 months: 0.4 µg
• 7-12 months: 0.5 mcg
• 1-3 years: 0.9 mcg
• 4-8 years: 1.2 mcg
• 9-13 years: 1.8 mcg
• 14-18 years: 2.4 µg • Over 18: 2.4 µg
• Pregnant women: 2.6 µg per day and 2.8 µg per day if you are breastfeeding.

How To Get Vitamin B12 From Your Diet


As mentioned earlier, vitamin B12 is naturally only found in meat. Hence, you can get this vitamin from animal sources such as dairy products, eggs, meat, fish, and poultry.

And vegans who do not eat meat can only take vitamin B12 in the form of dietary supplements or look for a food fortified with B12 and consult a nutritionist.

People who have difficulty getting this vitamin from their diet, such as the elderly, patients with pernicious anemia, or someone with bowel disease, also take supplements to avoid deficiency.

Symptoms of vitamin B12 deficiency

• Weakness
• Shortness of breath
• Pale or yellow skin
• Constipation, weight loss
• Nerve problems, feeling weak in the muscles.
• Difficulty walking. • Tingling in hands and feet
• Mental health problems such as depression, confusion, memory loss, and fatigue.
Who is more likely to have this defect?
• Vegans are comparatively more exposed to the risk of a vitamin B12 deficiency, as their diet completely dispenses with animal-based foods.
• The elderly due to the inability to absorb the vitamin from food.
• People with pernicious anemia as their condition do not allow them to get vitamin B12 because of the lack of a protein called intrinsic factor (IF).
Other than this
• People with small bowel problems
• Patients with Crohn’s disease
• People with chronic alcoholism.
• People taking the drug metformin for diabetes.

Conclusion


Now that you know the importance of vitamin B12 to maintaining your health and the drastic effects it can have if you don’t get enough of it, it’s time to add it to your diet.

If you are a vegan you need to make sure that you add fortified foods or take supplements to your diet as a vitamin B12 deficiency doesn’t see what age you are, it will affect you directly.

So before you are affected by it, it is better to tweak your diet a little.

source https://dailyhealthynews.ca/reasons-why-you-must-add-vitamin-b12-to-your-diet-today/