Hey all, welcome back to the Real Life Pharmacology podcast. I'm your host, pharmacist, Eric Christensen.

Thanks so much for listening. As always, be sure you check out Real Life Pharmacology.com.

Snaggy your free 31-page PDF on the top 200 drugs. Great little study guide reference for those folks maybe going through pharmacology classes or if you've

been out in practice for a while and just want a little refresher make sure you're staying up to

date definitely a cool little resource to check out and it's free absolutely free for subscribing

all right so let's talk about the drug of the day today medication is cyanocobalamin which is

vitamin b12 now some may not consider this a medication per se since it is a supplement and a

nutritional intake type of thing but i do and know, the reason being is that we certainly can dose it.

And obviously, it can be used to treat deficiency. And there are a bunch of medications, or a few

medications that I definitely look out for when I see in order for B12.

And I'll talk about that as I wrap up the podcast later in drug interactions for sure.

So what is vitamin B12 used for?

What's it good for in the body?

The most common indication I would say I see in practice is pernicious

anemia. Now what is, you know, pernicious anemia compared to, you know, generalized

anemia? Well, pernicious anemia specifically involves lack or low amounts of intrinsic factor.

Now, what's intrinsic factor?

Well, intrinsic factor aids in the absorption or is necessary for gut absorption of B12.

So in patients that don't have this intrinsic factor, odds are likely they're not getting enough B12. So in patients that don't have this intrinsic factor, odds are likely they're not getting

enough B12 in their diet through their food because they can't absorb it that well through the gut

because they don't have this intrinsic factor or an inadequate amount of intrinsic factor.

So long story short, these are the patients that you're or an inadequate amount of intrinsic factor.

...