New B12 Breath Test Developed to Indicate Deficiency by Amy Wermuth

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New B12 Breath Test Developed to Indicate Deficiency

Scientists have created a new breath test to identify the levels of vitamin B12. This new test is less expensive than previous testing, quicker, and simpler to diagnose. This is very good news that could help to evade the potentially fatal symptoms of B12 deficiency.

Just one week ago, a study was published the Journal of Breath Research, states that researchers have indeed created a easy, non-invasive, inexpensive breath test to more precisely measure vitamin B12.

If you are a vitamin and supplements advocate, suffer from vitamin deficiency, you know vitamin B12 deficiency is a mounting public health problem where the most common tests (using blood serum levels) are limited in accurateness, sensitivity and specificity for vitamin B12.

Vitamin B12 plays a critical part in the performance of the brain and nervous system. It is also essential for the development of red blood cells. Low levels can cause fatigue, clinical depression and memory loss. Quite a few reports have also associated B12 deficiency to anemia and Alzheimer's disease.

Additionally, vitamin B12 deficiency can often be asymptomatic (you can carry it without symptoms) and proper diagnosis can be daunting. The importance of developing a quality test for diagnoses is the key to helping those who suffer from deficiency.

Researchers, recognize that vitamin B12 plays a central role in the breakdown sodium propionate (a common preservative found in bakery products) into carbon dioxide. Due to this, the researchers say that it is possible to administer propionate to subjects, which would be broken down with the help of vitamin B12 in the body, and then calculate the resultant carbon dioxide.

The quantity of carbon dioxide exhaled would be proportional to the amount of vitamin B12 present in the subject's body. This means that individuals suffering from vitamin B12 deficiency would generate smaller amounts of carbon dioxide. That is simple enough is it not? A simple B12 breath test and you know.

To effectively distinguish this carbon dioxide from the typical amounts that people breathe out, the scientists labeled the administered propionate with a secure isotope of carbon, which is exhaled in the breath as labeled carbon dioxide.

To determine the accuracy of the new breath test, the obtained vitamin B12 levels from the test were compared with a number of blood compounds that are used to determine vitamin B12 deficiency currently.

The researchers sated that the results from the new study show that the vitamin B12 breath test is a not invasive, responsive, precise, and reproducible diagnostic test to detect vitamin B12 deficiency.

It is projected that this test could be on in use as early as 3 years depending on funding.