In these next five videos, I'm going to be covering everything vitamin B12.

How fast B12 deficiency can set in the earliest signs to watch out for,

why standard blood tests can miss it, and just how dangerous it can be left untreated.

Most importantly, the best way to protect yourself. For those eating plant-based diets, encouragement of vitamin B12 supplementation cannot be over-emphasized.

What happens if you don't get enough B12?

Well, the vitamin is necessary for the synthesis of DNA,

so a deficiency in B12 can cause pretty much anything.

Brain problems, psychiatric problems, sensory problems, constitutional problems, muscle problems, nerve problems.

It can also cause clotting disorders and bleeding disorders. It can make people

catatonic, hallucinate, psychotic, even suicidal. One patient got electroshock therapy before

they realized, oops, he was just B-12 deficient. Even more tragic are life-threatening manifestations of B-12 deficiency in infants when their moms aren't supplementing.

Coma, respiratory failure, severe brain damage.

VindB12 deficiency in pregnancy is the diagnosis not to miss.

I've done B-12 videos like this over and over again over the years.

Can we just stick to the consensus clinical guidelines and preventing, diagnosing, and treating

B12 deficiency? No, we can't because there aren't any. There are lots of recommendations out there, but little robust evidence to back them up.

They're based more on assumptions than solid clinical evidence.

That's why you'll see papers like this, how I treat vitamin B-12 deficiency.

Why should we care what some random doctor does? Because there aren't a lot of clear-cut answers everyone agrees upon.

For example, it is currently unknown how long it takes for vitamin B-12 deficiency to occur

in someone going completely plant-based without supplementing with B-12 or B-12-fortified foods.

This textbook suggested it might take as long as 10 or 20 years, but that was based on a study

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