Vitamin B12 deficiency: Changes in your walk and vision could be signs of the condition

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Vitamin B12 is absolutely essential for maintaining the body’s overall health, but many people may not be getting enough of the vitamin in their diet. When this does occur a person may feel dizzy when standing up too quickly, disorientated, their walking abilities may be affected or they may have disturbed vision.

Vitamin B12 or folate deficiency anaemia can cause a wide range of symptoms.

These usually develop gradually but can worsen if the condition goes untreated, said the NHS.

The health site continued: “Anaemia is where you have fewer red blood cells than normal, or you have an abnormally low amount of a substance called haemoglobin in each red blood cell.”

Disturbed or blurred vision can also occur as a result of a vitamin B12 deficiency.

This happens when the deficiency causes damage to the optic nerve that leads to your eyes.

The nervous signal that travels from the eye to the brain is disturbed due to this damage, leading to impaired vision.

This condition is called optic neuropathy and treatment involving B12 supplements usually reverses the impairment.

Frequent bouts of dizziness or vertigo may indicate a B12 deficiency.

A person may experience a feeling of wobbles when you they get up too fast from a sitting position.

A person may also feel dizzy when they walk up or downstairs which can obviously become dangerous.

Chronic vertigo symptoms should be brought to your doctor’s attention, so you can be given the required treatment for the deficiency.

According to the health body, general symptoms of anaemia may include:

  • Extreme tiredness (fatigue)
  • Lack of energy (lethargy)
  • Breathlessness
  • Feeling faint
  • Headaches
  • Pale skin
  • Noticeable heartbeats (palpitations)
  • Hearing sounds coming from inside the body, rather than from an outside source (tinnitus)

Vitamin B12 is a nutrient found in fish, meat, poultry, eggs, milk, and milk products, such as haddock, beef, chicken and yoghurt.

When a person had autoimmune atrophic gastritis, the body mistakenly attacks healthy stomach cells, including a protein called intrinsic factor.

Intrinsic factor is responsible for helping the body absorb vitamin B12 by binding with the vitamin.

However, when the stomach cells are attacked, intrinsic factor may not be created, meaning it can’t bind to vitamin B12, resulting in the nutrient being excreted from the body.
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