Vitamin B12 Deficiency: Here's All You Need To Know!

April 18,2022
2 Min Read

Vitamin B12 is crucial for the proper functioning of the human body.

While many of us are aware that vitamin B12 deficiency can cause a form of anemia, the effects of vitamin B12 deficiency are far-reaching:

Effects of vitamin B12 deficiency:

Damage to the nervous system – seen initially as numbness and tingling in the hands and feet.
Deficient infants may even show facial tremors and developmental issues.
Higher risk of developing psychosis, mania and dementia
Even mild deficiency can cause anemia, fatigue, confusion, memory problems and depression
Other symptoms include constipation, weight loss and loss of appetite

Are you at risk of vitamin B12 deficiency?

The people at risk include:

Vegans
Those suffering from pernicious anemia
Those with small intestine problems
Those suffering from Crohn’s disease
Chronic alcoholics
Diabetics being treated with metformin

To understand the vitamin B12 status of the general population, we studied the levels of all those who did a vitamin B12 test as a part of routine health check-up at Suburban Diagnostics over the past 5 years.

From almost 1.3 lakh samples we found that:

1 in 5 people (overall) were vitamin B12 deficient.

While many consider anemia to be a good indicator of vitamin B12 deficiency, we found that 78% of those deficient in vitamin B12 had normal hemoglobin levels.

Surprisingly, the deficiency was seen more in men than women.

~1 in 4 men were deficient in vitamin B12.

~1 in 7 women were deficient in vitamin B12.

If one considered the age groups at which deficiency was more, then the most vulnerable age group in females were the 20-29 years of age group and in males, it was the 30-39 years of age group.

Age group (in years)	Percentage of people with vitamin B12 deficiency
Age group (in years)	Females	Males
0 - 9	6%	11%
10 - 19	17%	20%
20 - 29	22%	28%
30 - 39	19%	32%
40 - 49	17%	26%
50 - 59	12%	19%
60 +	9%	15%