LifeCare Chiropractic

The Best Chiropractic Care in Mesa, Arizona

Methylcobalamin

What Form of Vitamin B12 are You Taking? 4 Tips You Need to Know

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Vitamin B12
What’s the best type of B12?

What kind of vitamin B12 are you taking? Cyanocobalamin is the most common form, but it’s also the worst form.

This is a great way to tell if your multivitamin is a good quality product or a piece of worthless junk. If your B12 is in the cyanocobalamin form (you’ll likely have to look at the actual ingredient list) you might as well just toss it in the garbage because the forms of the all the other vitamins are likely low quality as well.

The methylcobalamin form is the preferred form of vitamin B12 for the brain and this is the form I’ve typically recommended in my blog posts. In our office, I have always recommended Biotics’ brand B12 2000 which has the hydroxycobalamin form. But I’ve never really given much thought to why Biotics uses this form instead of the methylcobalamin until my education was expanded.

Dr. Harry Eidenier from DSD International sent out a communication that detailed why Biotics uses the hydroxycobalamin form. It turns out that the methyl from the methylcobalamin form has a tendency to bind up with mercury. And this information was discovered way back in the 70s and you can read about it in this particular study.

“But I don’t suck on mercury thermometers, doc,” you think to yourself.

Got any amalgam fillings? Mercury containing fillings are constantly giving off mercury vapor which can bind to the methyl in the methylcobalamin, creating methylmercury.

Methylmercury is a much more potent and absorbable form of mercury in mammals. If you have any concerns about the health of your brain, avoiding methylmercury is a good idea.

While we’re on the topic of vitamin B12, here’s a few additional tips:

  1. As mentioned, if you’ve got amalgam fillings, stick with the hydroxycobalamin form.
  2. If you’re getting injections, the cyanocobalamin form should NOT be used. The other two forms are acceptable.
  3. Although the RDA is around 15 mcg, a decent dose is closer to 2,000 mcg. It can take a very high dose to bypass poor absorption. Bad absorption occurs with older age (the region of the stomach that makes intrinsic factor needed to absorb B12 wears away with age). Stress and gastric bypass also affects absorption.
  4. I have never recommended sublingual forms. B12 is not absorbed in the mouth so holding it under your tongue does not help absorption.

Vitamin B12 is an important part of good health. Normally we get B12 from animal products, but the bacteria in the gut also produces B12. Of course, if you’ve had antibiotics you’ve likely blown this source of B12. A good quality multivitamin is likely to have a good level of vitamin B12, but if you’ve got a problem with absorption listed in #3 above, you’re going to need to be on a B12 vitamin. The brand (Biotics) that I recommend has B12, folic acid and B6—a very good combination.

 

Neuropathy Support Formula: 2 More Vitamins for Neuropathy

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I recently covered the use of whole body vibration to improve painful diabetic neuropathy.  CoQ10 also has research behind it for preventing it in the first place.

I won’t go into how much diabetic neuropathy sucks, because if you deal with it, you already know.  Likewise, I will not go over how important it is to manage the prediabetic and diabetic spectrum to prevent diabetic neuropathy in the first place.  This was covered ad nauseum in the blog article referenced above.

In painful diabetic neuropathy, there is a problem with the way the nerves going into the legs and feet are behaving.  Given how much nutrition and vitamin supplements play a role in healthy nerve function, it would make sense that there are natural tools in the supplement toolbox that can be used for this condition.  I’ve already mentioned Coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10).  Since CoQ10 is absolutely essential for the high-energy cells in your body (such as nerve, heart and muscle cells), CoQ10 supplementation can benefit diseases and conditions associated with these types of cells.

B12, also known as cobalamin, is vitally important for quite a few processes in your body.  Cell division, the formation of neurotransmitters and nerve cell function (vitamin B12 plays a role in the formation of the myelin sheath that protects your nerves).  One thing to be careful of with vitamin B12 for neuropathy, though, is to absolutely avoid the cyanocobalamin form, which is the most commonly used in supplements AND vitamin B12 injections.  I’ve covered this topic in more detail in a prior blog article that can be read by clicking here.  As an interesting note: The very common diabetic drug metformin is well known to deplete the body of vitamin B12 stores…

Alpha lipoic acid (sometimes referred to as thioctic acid) is another naturally occurring substance that can follow in the footsteps of CoQ10 because it is used in the generation of energy for every cell in our body.  As always, the high-energy cells like nerve cells need more energy and thus can benefit greatly from alpha lipoic acid in neuropathy.  Alpha lipoic acid has also been shown to protect the beta cells of the pancreas, thus protect from or helping with diabetes.

This particular study just highlights what we’ve already seen with these two supplements for foot neuropathy treatment in diabetes.  Here’s the details:

  • 17 different studies were evaluated.
  • The treatment lasted from 2-4 weeks.
  • The form of vitamin B12 used was methylcobalamin (the preferred form for the nerves) at 500-1,000 mcg (the study states “mg” but I’m thinking that’s a typo).
  • Alpha lipoic acid was used in the 300-600 mg range given via IV.
  • Both vitamins for neuropathy were effective at improving nerve function, but the combination of both was 47% stronger than either alone.

Not too shabby considering that there were NO adverse effects noted.

Overall, though, I think we’re beginning to see some pretty successful tools to be used in foot neuropathy treatment for diabetics, both supplemental and mechanical (whole body vibration).  Side note: our office uses a B12 lozenge with 2,000 mcg that I would compare to the injectable forms and is much simpler to use.