1 Veg Mastery Program: Q&A 9 with Michael Klaper, MD. Topic: Vitamin B12. Copyright 2011 by the Vegetarian Health Institute
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Veg Mastery Program: Q&A 9 With Michael Klaper, MD. Topic: Vitamin B12. Copyright 2011 by The Vegetarian Health Institute Trevor: Hi, this is Trevor Justice. After listening to this Q&A call, please review it. You’ll find a review box at the bottom of this page. Or, if you’re listening on your iPod or MP3 player, just return to the page you downloaded the recording from. Feel free to critique the advice, the audio quality or anything else. To keep improving our content, we will redo any Q&A call that doesn’t get excellent reviews. If you want transcripts of all fifty Q&A calls, please visit www.veghealth.com/transcripts . We’re here with Dr. Klaper to talk about Vitamin B12. Dr. Klaper? Dr. Klaper: Good evening, Trevor. It’s good to be with you and your interesting guests again. I really enjoy being here with you. B12 is a very important topic to discuss. Trevor: Before getting to the questions, let's summarize for anyone who hasn't read the whole lesson. What are the concerns for vegans and vegetarians with Vitamin B12? Dr. Klaper: Well, Vitamin B12 is an amazing molecule. It has a number of functions in the body. It’s required for production of red blood cells. It’s required for the function of nerve tissue in the spinal cord and peripheral nerves. No animal makes Vitamin B12. It’s made by bacteria in the soil and the water. In olden times, people, even vegans, used to consume it in the well water they drank from. People used to drink from streams and work all day in their gardens. They'd have little particles of soil under their fingernails. Anything eaten in a natural soil-rich and water-rich environment would contain B12. There wouldn't have been an issue, even without eating animals. If they did eat animals, they would certainly get Vitamin B12. Not because cows or pigs make Vitamin B12, but they’re eating grass and nosing around in the dirt all day. They’re swallowing grass that has soil particles clinging to it. Soil particles have the Vitamin B12. So the cow absorbs it and it deposits it in the muscles. That’s bacterial B12 in the cow’s muscle. The cow didn’t make it. We need B12 in our own system. Without it we can develop severe anemia. More importantly, without B12 our spinal cord and peripheral nerves will get damaged. At the risk of sounding ominous, all vegans will eventually develop Vitamin B12 deficiency unless they create a source in their diet. It may take years to show up, but it's serious business. I’ve been a vegan physician for over thirty years now and I’ve seen several dozen vegans over the years come to me with serious B12 deficiencies. These should never be allowed to develop. We have to take this seriously. It’s a matter of where to get the B12. Nowadays it’s easy to do. You can just put a little tablet under your tongue and let it dissolve there. Soy milk and various processed vegan foods are fortified with B12. 1 B12 is an essential part of any nutritional program. Fortunately it’s easy to sprinkle some fortified nutritional yeast on your vegetables. Or put a little tablet under your tongue a couple times a month. It isn't a big inconvenience. But it shouldn’t be overlooked either. Trevor: Well great. That was a good summary. I’ve got a couple questions. You made a really good point that people shouldn’t rely on nutritional yeast as their sole source of B12 because it’s sensitive to sunlight. It’s possible that yeast in grocery-store bulk-bins is the wrong sort of yeast. It could have a label that says it is fortified with B12 and not be, correct? Also, some people shun supplements – myself included. Many people feel that nutrients should come from whole natural foods. Is the B12 in nutritional yeast any different than the B12 in supplements? Dr. Klaper: No. It’s the same B12. The B12 is added to the yeast. It comes from bacteria that make B12, which are cultured in large vats. The B12 is separated out and then added to vitamin tablets and nutritional yeast. It's still coming from the same source. Regardless of where your B12 comes from, the bacteria made it. If you get it from a cow rolling in the dirt, from a supplement, or wherever, the source is the same. It is “natural” B12 from any source. B12 is just a molecule created by a bacteria. It’s a strange distinction to say it is natural or unnatural. Trevor: Well, let me rephrase it. If someone is using a lot of nutritional yeast in their diet thinking this is a food based B12 which is better than taking a supplement. Is there anything to that? Dr. Klaper: No, there is nothing to that. The yeast, Saccharomyces Cerevisiae, that is used for nutritional yeast, does not make B12. The yeast doesn’t make the B12. It is added to the product at the end. The vast majority of nutritional yeast has no B12 unless the company adds it. Trevor: Got it. Okay. Dulse, a seaweed, is a another source. You've mentioned that this is also not something you can use as your sole source. Dulse, however, can add some B12 to help fulfill your daily requirements. What about the B12 in Dulse? Is it any higher quality than the B12 you get in the supplements? Dr. Klaper: No. Unfortunately, it may be of lower quality. Dulse is a sea plant with many molecules that are cousins to B12 that are inactive. They are called B12 analogs. Seaweeds are notorious for being loaded with analogs. An analog is very molecular similar to another molecule, but can not be used the same way. Because the B12 analog may be present in the seaweed, your B12 receptors in your body may be fooled. If a B12 analog is occupying a receptor site, then the real B12 can not access the cell's receptor. B12 analogs from seaweed may actually precipitate a B12 deficiency. 2 There is some B12 in dulse. Yet as an actual source, it’s a little dubious. I have to mention it to be intellectually honest. While dulse has B12 it is not advisable to use it as a source because the analogs may cause an imbalance. My advice is to have a little dulse, a little yeast and a little of other fortified foods. Varied sources are always advisable, for any nutrient. But when it comes to B12, everything is very much like taking a supplement. Trevor: Your lesson says that seaweeds like Nori have a lot of B12 analogs. Only dulse may contain real B12. Does that make dulse the best seaweed? Dr. Klaper: Yes, it is the best seaweed for B12. All seaweed has lots of good iodine and minerals. Seaweed is wonderful and they should appear in your diet a couple times a week. Of them all, dulse has the best chance of being a reasonable B12 source. Trevor: You've just mentioned soil being a source of B12 in the past. What's changed in society that we no longer get B12 from dirt? Dr. Klaper: The fertilizer. If you dig up vegetables in a forest, then the soil has been enriched with the excrement and decaying particles from dozens of lifeforms. Today, it's common for the soil to have little B12 present from modern fertilization techniques. I have seen B12 deficiencies in raw food folks who think they're getting it from dirty garden vegetables. That will only be the case if the garden soil has B12-producing organisms. It's tenuous to bet your spinal cord on the hopes that a couple of B12 granules may be in the soil clinging to your home-grown kale. Animal manure is key to B12 presence in the soil. A veganic garden will not obtain B12 easily. In nature, deer and rabbits come by for a snack and leave fresh fertilizer in their wake. That's the B12 soil source. We don't live in a natural world anymore, and there is nothing natural about the foods we're eating. It's too risky to risk a serious nervous system injury for the sake of “purity.” Even your garden plants are not natural – the kale and collards – they've been hybridized over the years. Different air, chlorinated water – there is nothing natural about this world we're living in. It’s not worth betting your nervous system on the hopes of living a “more natural life” at this point. Trevor: Let me interject – some listeners might be feeling that you’re saying; “Oh, don’t bother even growing kale or collards.” Dr. Klaper: No, do. Absolutely. Trevor: Let me put it in lay person’s terms. There are people that we call “natural hygienists.” I can see, Dr. Klaper, that you’ve been in debates with them. 3 I feel like your reacting to the philosophy that they’ve put forth. The “don’t eat any supplements” philosophy, and “we should just eat food grown organically in our own gardens.” For people listening, it’s not that Dr. Klaper is trying to discourage anyone from growing your own kale and collards. Rather, Dr. Klaper is pointing out that some supplements may be needed, even if you have your own organic garden.