I know you work hard to make the best lifestyle choices so you can improve your health destiny and longevity.

And there's lots of information out there on how to do just that.

So where do you start?

Well, we start with the facts.

Welcome to the Nutrition Facts Podcast.

I'm your host, Dr. Michael Greger.

My job is to bring you the latest peer-reviewed nutrition and health research and share it with you here.

Today, we bring you B12 The Musical.

No, just kidding.

There's no singing or dancing on the podcast today, but we will bring you part one of the story of this extremely important vitamin.

Did you know that a B12 deficiency is so hard to diagnose because it masquerades as other conditions?

Here's our first story.

In 1853, a bed-ridden vegetarian was reported to experience a remarkable recovery upon eating meat.

Probably didn't help he was an opium addict, but he had been doing that for a decade.

It was only after five years as a vegetarian.

Did he end up bed-ridden, covered in bed-source?

My little beef and mutton he was eventually up and about.

Can't blame the poor guy as this was nearly a century before the discovery and identification of vitamin B12,

resulting in just one of six separate Nobel Prizes awarded for teasing out its structure and function.

One of the most dramatic events in the history of medicine was the curing of prenecious anemia of B12 deficiency disease,

and otherwise fatal disorder with a special diet centered around calf and beef liver.

Vitamin B12 levels start to drop within months of cutting out meat.

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