Vitamin B12 Test plus Vitamin D

A vitamin B12 test plus vitamin D is essential before taking supplements. Thus, you avoid spending unnecessary money and, which is more important protect yourself from overdosing.

Maybe your doctor made already some or even all of them. It's more likely however that none of these tests have been made up to now. In this case, you are well advised to ask your doctor to do it.

Sometimes it's necessary to insist because they don't see any necessity for these tests. Nevertheless, insist if he or she disagrees because it's your health and not theirs.

What happens instead is they tell their patients to take some vitamin D and vitamin B complex supplements without knowing how much their patients need and whether it is at all necessary.

Unnecessarily given supplements can produce the opposite of the desired results and can even worsen the situation.

What to control?

First: The Vitamin D test

This is not simply checking vitamin D because there are two different types.

1. Vitamin D, 1,25 Dihydroxy level or 1,25(OH)(2)D

2. Vitamin D 25 Hydroxy level or 25(OH)D level

Studies have shown that vitamin D 1,25-Dihydroxy level changes only significantly when the normal 25(OH)-Vitamin-D level has dropped so far to be considered a VERY severe vitamin D deficiency.

What you have to ask for though is the 25(OH) vitamin D test.

Second: The Vitamin B12 test

This is a little more complex as there are more values to check than simply B12. The answer we need is whether there is enough B12 available in a form that can be assimilated into the cells. This is what counts.

Here is a list of the values you need to control. Then I will explain why you need all of them.

1. Total Vitamin B12

2. Holotranscobalamin (HTRC)

3. Folate (folic acid)

4. MMA test (MethylMalonic Acid)

5. Homocysteine

6. Vitamin B6

Why You Need The Vitamin B12 Test AND Additional Values

• Total vitamin B12 is usually checked in case of vague suspicion of B12 lack. As it is an important vitamin for the nervous system and MS is a problem of the CNS, this check is under all circumstances essential.

Nevertheless, almost no doctor controls it in his MS patients why so ever.

• Holotranscobalamin (HTRC) should be checked at the same time but it's often postponed until a possible lack of B12 is secured.

HTRC is the protein-bound, active B12 assimilated into the cells and participating in the metabolism.

• Methylmalonic Acid (MMA in serum) is an indicator of a B12 lack. The lower B12 the higher MMA will rise. This in turn affects the cell metabolism negative.

• Homocysteine (HCY) is also a marker for a lack of B12. Equal to MMA, it will rise inversely proportional to declining vitamin B12. Too much HCY in the blood stream affects both, the blood vessels and the nervous system.

In contrast to MMA, the level of folate and vitamin B6 affects the amount of HCY as well.

• Vitamin B6 can next to vitamin B12 break down HCY. Again, a lack can lead to risen HCY values.

• Folate is in combination with B12 responsible for the conversion of homocysteine into Methionin, one of the essential amino acids. High level of folate can compensate the lack of B12 and reduce HCY.

The bad news is that high folate producing a low MMA covers a lack of B12 and increases neurological damages until they are impossible to be reversed.

In MS it can be dangerous to take a vitamin B complex supplement may have an opposite effect than the one intended because the B12 contained in these compounds is usually not absorbed due to vitamin B12 malabsorption in the ileum, the last part of the small intestine causing other values to haywire.

The last information you need is the values of all these parameters and markers. Here is the...

Blood Values Overview

Ask your doctor for supplementation recommendations if your vitamin B12 test and vitamin D test show values that have to be corrected. There is additional information on vitamin B12 supplementation and vitamin D sources.

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