Why Vitamin B12 Is Important

Vitamin B12 cannot be absorbed in sufficient quantities in a purely plant-based diet.

A deficiency in vitamin B12 often occurs in people who follow a purely plant-based, i.e. vegan, diet. Vegetarians have a lower risk of being deficient in vitamin B12 .

What does the body need vitamin B12 for?

Vitamin B12 is responsible for many functions in the body. This is because vitamin B12 is actually a whole group of vitamins: the cobalamines.

From a chemical point of view, vitamin B12 is cyanocobalamin, which is only converted into coenzyme, B12, in the body. So there is no “B12” in the food itself, just a preliminary stage.

Vitamin B12 is important for:

• Blood formation
• Nervous system
• Cell division
• Fat metabolism

Just looking at these processes in which B12 is involved, it becomes clear what consequences a deficiency can have.

Symptoms and consequences of a B12 deficiency

Don’t worry: because the body can store relatively large amounts of B12, a deficiency does not arise immediately if you go without animal products for a few weeks.

But if you want to live vegan in the long term, you should definitely get vitamin B12 in another way to prevent the following damage to health:

• Mood swings
• irritability
• depression
• Psychoses
• Manias
• anemia
• Tingling or numbness in fingers or toes
• Signs of paralysis
• confusion
• dementia
• Coordination difficulties and
• Memory loss

Of course, these consequences don’t happen immediately, but rather sneak into your life.

Often the consequences can also be traced back to other causes, which often makes the cause difficult for a doctor to pin down. Make sure to inform him that you are eating a purely plant-based diet if you observe the following symptoms and abnormalities in yourself:

• tingling fingers or toes
• chronic indigestion
• discolored tongue
• fatigue
• paleness
• Difficulty concentrating
• Reduced memory

Please also keep in mind that not only a vegan diet can lead to a deficiency, but also malnutrition, for example in seniors with anorexia and some diseases lead to the body taking in too little vitamin B12.

This applies, for example, to celiac disease, Crohn’s disease and chronic gastritis. Medicines or parasites can also lead to this.

Which foods contain the vitamin?

Quite simply: in animal foods. There are also algae, lactic acid fermented foods (such as sauerkraut) and a few mushrooms (such as shiitake) that contain B12, but not in a form that is easily bioavailable to the human body and in the smallest quantities.

Your body can only optimally absorb the vitamin from animal foods.

But you don’t have to eat meat to meet your needs! As a vegetarian, it is possible to meet all your needs with dairy products or egg dishes.

Only those who live vegan need to take vitamin B12 from other sources. There are various products on the market such as drops, tablets or toothpaste.

How much does your body need

For adults, 3 micrograms per day is sufficient. That sounds like little, it is.

It is easy to cover the daily requirement with a normal mixed diet or a vegetarian diet without thinking about it too much.

100g cheese already covers the daily requirement of an adult. However, because we Germans consume far too much meat and animal products, the daily dose of B12 is significantly higher than the recommended amount.

A diet that contains a lot of meat and animal products easily leads to an oversupply, which is harmless to health.

B12 is soluble in water, which means that too much is easily excreted in the urine.

Nobody has to worry about an overdose, it is not harmful to health. Only high meat consumption is harmful to health, which can lead to gout, high cholesterol levels, arteriosclerosis and other secondary diseases, for example.

So you shouldn’t worry about your B12 supply if you are eating “normally”.

You should think about your meat consumption without worrying about the much discussed B12: as long as you eat eggs and do not remove dairy products from the menu, you do not have to worry about a vitamin deficiency in B12. On the contrary: you are doing something good for your health if you eat less (or no) meat …