Source: Cancer Immunity  |  Posted 9 years ago

Older vegetarians should take vitamin B[_]12[] supplements routinely because vitamin B[_]12[] deficiency is associated with anaemia in this patient population, investigators report.

They add, however, that anaemia associated with this deficiency is seldom macrocytic.

The investigators, led by Dr. T. Kwok from the department of medicine and therapeutics, Prince of Wales Hospital, Chinese University of Hong Kong, examined the independent effect of vitamin B[_]12[] deficiency on haematological indices in 119 Chinese women over 55 years of age who had been vegetarians for more than three years.

The investigators took fasting blood samples from the patients in order to perform a complete blood count as well as to measure serum iron, total serum iron binding capacity, serum iron saturation, serum vitamin B[_]12[], serum folate, serum methylmalonic acid (MMA) levels, and renal functioning.

Women with iron deficiency, defined as iron saturation below 15 percent, and those with serum creatinine above 150 mmol/L were excluded from the study.

Forty-two percent of participants had definite vitamin B[_]12[] deficiency, defined as vitamin B[_]12[] level less than 150 pmol/L and MMA