METHYLCOBALAMIN, B-12, SLOWS BRAIN SHRINKAGE & RESTORES YOUR CIRCADIAN RHYTHMS

George Hoyt Whipple discovered B-12 in 1934.  So knowledge of this nutritional compound is well known and well-studied.  B-12 is water soluble, plays a key role in the normal functioning of the brain and nervous system, and basically interacts with the bacteria in your body to produce energy, described here:

Vitamin B₁₂, also called cobalamin, is a water-soluble vitamin that has a key role in the normal functioning of the brain and nervous system via the synthesis of myelin (myelinogenesis),^[1][2] and the formation of red blood cells. It is one of eight B vitamins. It is involved in the metabolism of every cell of the human body, especially affecting DNA synthesis, fatty acid and amino acidmetabolism.^[3] No fungi, plants, or animals (including humans) are capable of producing vitamin B₁₂. Only bacteria and archaea have the enzymes needed for its synthesis. Some substantial sources of B₁₂ include animal products (shellfish, meat), fortified foods, and dietary supplements.^[4][5] B₁₂ is the largest and most structurally complicated vitamin and is produced industrially only through bacterial fermentation. This B₁₂ is used for fortified foods and supplements. It has also been produced synthetically via vitamin B₁₂total synthesis.

Yeah, the synthetic version of B-12, called cyanocobalamin, actually has cyanide in it.  You may want to steer clear of that one.  Methylcobabalmin is the preferred for of B-12.

Sardi published an article back on September 11, 2013, titled "The Incredible Shrinking (Mushy) Vitamin B-12 Deficient Brain."  It will alert you to the serious problems that result from a B-12 deficiency, and I say this as a guy who takes a supplement daily (with a B-12 dose of 320mcg; that exceeds a maintenance dose by 5000%.  I wonder what a therapeutic dose is).  His article starts with a citation to the Tufts University study on how a mild deficiency of B-12 speeds dementia.  Yikes.  In terms of numbers, what is a deficiency of B-12?  

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans of the brain of a 76-year-old patient with dementia. The brain has shrunk, and the ventricles, the fluid-filled spaces (dark brown) at the center of the brain, have become enlarged. Photo: BSIP/Photoresearchers Inc.

It's elusive.  According to the B-12 website (yes, there's a website dedicated just to vitamin B-12), he states that it is 7ug, whatever that is.  But there is a summary to the article, and that's here:

The daily requirement according to DGE: 3 µg.  

The daily requirement is not actually the necessary amount!

Current studies recommend an intake of 7-10 µg.
During stress, illness and pregnancy, a higher intake is required.
Vegans should take supplements. 

Okay, so it looks like you want to be maintaining, meaning taking on a daily basis, 3 µg.  So anything less than that, you risk becoming deficient and moving toward mild dementia.  So don't start down that road.  It's a lot easier to remember to take the methylcobalamin, B-12, than to try to rebuild the brain.  

Investigators at Tufts University display striking images of the human brain when it is deficient in vitamin B-12.  Brain scans show fluid-filled spaces as the center of a shrinking B-12 deficient brain—literally holes in the brain. 

The report starts

Being even mildly deficient in vitamin B-12 may put older adults at a greater risk for accelerated cognitive decline, an observational study from the Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts suggests.  

Still, no numbers on how to measure "Being even mildly deficient . . . ."  

BENEFITS OF B-12, METHYLCOBALAMIN

BENEFIT #1:  Delays and significantly slows the shrinkage of the brain.  Methylcobalamin, B-12 produces stunning benefits on the brain, on the heart, on the spine, and the muscles and nerves that run all through your body.  It slows brain shrinkage by 7 times of what is normal.  This should be a daily regimen for life.   

A prior study showed that high-dose B vitamins (800 mcg folic acid, 20mgs vitamin B6, 500 mcgs of B-12) slows the rate of shrinkage in the human brain, and more demonstrably (by 7 times) shrinkage of grey matter in the brain.

So here I've listed some of the benefits of B-12: Methyllcobalamin, B-12, Betaine Hydrochloride, and Benfotiamine.  But what causes brain shrinkage in the first place?  Is there a way to prevent shrinkage or avoid it altogether?  First, I would stay away from foods drain the B-12 stores from your body, things like coffee, alcohol, digestive disorders, pernicious anemia, injuries, and worst of all, stress.  Stress is a killer, especially chronic stress.  B-12 helps fight off the damaging effects of stress on the brain.  

BENEFIT #2:  B-12 revitalizes and restores brain, heart, and spinal energy.  Few things do all three.

BENEFIT #3:  B-12 restores your circadian rhythms.  You will get the best sleep of your life.  Nothing compares.  Plus, given all the other benefits of how it rebuilds the brain, spine, heart, blood vessels, tell me, what's not to like.  If your sleep is better, just think how less irritable you'll be the next day.  I got the best sleep I'd head in decades.   

Effects of vitamin B12 on performance and circadian rhythm in normal subjects.  Neuropsychopharmacology, 1996.

This preliminary study investigates effects of methyl- and cyanocobalamin on circadian rhythms, well-being, alertness, and concentration in healthy subjects. Six women (mean age 35 years) and 14 men (mean age 37 years) were randomly assigned to treatment for 14 days with 3 mg cyano-(CB12) or methylcobalamin (MB12) after 9 days of pre-treatment observation. Levels in the CB12 group increased rapidly in the first, then slowly in the second treatment week, whereas increase in the MB12 group was linear. Urinary aMT6s excretion was reduced by both forms of vitamin B12 over 24 hours with a significant decrease between 0700-1100 hours, whereas urinary excretion of potassium was significantly increased between 0700-1100 hours. Activity from 2300-0700 hours increased significantly under both forms of vitamin B12. Sleep time was significantly reduced under MB12 intake. In this group the change in the visual analogue scales items "sleep quality," "concentration," and "feeling refreshed" between pretreatment and the first week of treatment showed significant correlations with vitamin B12 plasma levels. Cortisol excretion and temperature were not affected by either medication. We conclude that vitamin B12 exerts a direct influence on melatonin. Only MB12 has a positive psychotropic alerting effect with a distribution of the sleep-wake cycle toward sleep reduction.

WHAT B12 DEFICIENCY LOOKS LIKE

You already know what it looks like: fatigue because your circadian rhythms are ruined; poor appetite because you're eating fast food and coffee because you're trying to compensate for the deleterious disruption of your circadian rhythms.  Get the B-12.  Depression and numbness and tingling in the hands and or feet all for the same reason: disruption of your circadian rhythms that are built on your body's ability to coordinate its nerve and muscle and hormone functions properly.  You don't want to let these conditions go unanswered.  Get the B-12.  Take it throughout the day.  Take it daily.  It's at this point that most medical articles will say "so speak to your doctor promptly about treatment," but I would say, hey, your doctor doesn't know much about nutrition and even less about nutritional supplements, so instead of speaking with your doctor, consult the valuable articles and books by Bill Sardi.  

CAUSES OF B-12 DEFICIENCY
Bill Sardi points to two causes of B-12 deficiency: lack of absorption and H. Pylori bacterium.  The latter shuts down stomach acid and the former   

Lack of absorption of dietary and supplemental vitamin B-12 due to progressive inability to produce stomach acid is cited as a growing concern.  Therefore, it may be that widespread H. Pylori infection, which is prevalents in more than half of the US population, could be a parallel facto as H. Pylori shuts down production of stomach acid or hydrochloric acid. 

Lack of absorption is a serious problem for oldsters.  We might eat right but we're just not absorbing the nutrition that we need from a healthy diet.  

The academy estimates that between 10 percent and 30 percent of people older than 50 produce too little stomach acid to release B12 from its carrier protein in foods, and as the years advance, the percentage of low-acid producers rises.

Diabetics are at an added risk.

Another concern is that most often used anti-diabetic drug, metformin, depletes the body of vitamin B-12.  Metformin use has been associated with decliningmental function.

REMEDY THE DEFICIENCY

1.  Eat lean animal meats to get B-12 from food. 

Animal proteins, such as lean meats, poultry and eggs, are good sources of vitamin B-12. Because older adults may have a hard time absorbing vitamin B-12 from food, the USDAʼs 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommend that people over age 50 incorporate foods fortified with B-12 or supplements in their diets.

2.  Supplement with Betaine Hydrochloride to replenish stomach acid so that you can digest the foods above and get the needed B-12.  

The group studied did eat meats, so one of the reasons for them being deficient is due to low stomach acid at age 75 and above.  To remedy the problem of low stomach acid, then you'll need to supplement with Betaine Hydrochloride.  For low stomach acid, Sardi recommends the following:  

1) Follow an anti-H Pylori regimen;

2) Supplement your diet with zinc which is needed to make hydrochloric acid in the stomach. [I never heard of this before];

3) Take Betaine Hydrochloride with meals to provide supplemental acid source. 

SUPPLEMENTS TO REMEDY NERVE & MUSCLE FATIGUE, A TIRED HEART, A TIRED BRAIN, AND A TIRED SPINE

Methylcobalamin
 

If you're not getting enough B12 from the meats and eggs in your diet, supplement with this hydrochloric acid to help break down those proteins and other nutrients, like B-12

Betaine Hydrochloride.  


Mind Boosters: A Guide to Natural Supplements That Enhance Your Mind, Memory, and Mood, Ray Sahelian, 2000.  

Betaine Hydrochloride Improves Liver Function

Betaine Hydrochloride "[can] improve liver function, build muscle, reduce . . . heart disease, and [give] you a good night's sleep."

What do you know about Betaine Hydrochloride?  

I knew nothing . . . not until this past week.  It is an enzyme.  Years ago a friend told me that his mother had heard in her years that enzymes were all the rage.  Perhaps they were, er, are.  Based on what I've recently read, they do sound as some sort of super supplement.  Betaine Hydrochloride is a supplemental enzyme made from beets.  

Betaine hydrochloride [is] derived from beets . . . 

Okay, but what is it used for?

[It] is a supplement for helping food to be fully dissolved and processed in the stomach for optimum nutritional benefits.

It goes on . . . 

The stomach processes food both mechanically and chemically by breaking it down with hydrochloric acid into its basic constituents, which are then forwarded to the digestive system and blood for nutritional distribution.

This is good to know, one, that the stomach uses muscles as well as chemicals to break down food.  Two, what you should know is that hydrochloric acid is an important component of your immune system. That's right.  Having enough and having the right kind of hydrochloric acid boosts your immunity, making the stomach an important location for destroying pathogens.  

If food is not processed effectively by the stomach, it is as if the body is being starved of a healthy diet with the same potential health consequences due to an inefficient or sub-optimal immune system. All disease arises from either low immunity, abnormal immunity or auto-immunity, including cancer, the immune system as a whole being ultimately dependent on gut flora of the stomach and digestive tract.

And here comes the scare tactic about how this acid production past a certain age begins to decline and therefore . . . you got it . . . therefore you should supplement.  I don't doubt it.  I would supplement. I do supplement.  I guess the older folks that I grew up with never complained about their ailments.  I just never heard of them.  When people died, they just died.  Never heard anything about symptoms.  Even when an older relative had surgery, we never heard what the procedure was for or what organ was in need of repair.  It was either them getting sick and dying or them going into surgery and dying.  I once had a co-worker in her mid-40s go in for some kind of stomach surgery and she died on the operating table.  What joy.  I asked a nurse friend of mine about a certain stomach condition.  He said that that particular condition was serious and that they apply massive amounts of antibiotics during surgery to protect nearby organs from exposure to the bacteria of the gut.

Older folks never complained about their ailments because of the shame or the privacy of their conditions that they shared exclusively with their doctors.  Though there are obvious benefits to this privacy for the patient, it also has a corrupting influence, one in which the doctor operates as an accomplice in the deterioration of the patient.  In other words, for some people letting others like loved ones know of their ailment makes that individual suffering the condition a bit more accountable to his own health.  If his medical history is put into the exclusive hands of his doctor outside of the view of his family and their interests, then that is just too much trust placed in the doctors' hands.  I knew a pair of urologists years ago--they've since retired--who coddled and enabled a relative to make him think that his behavior was just fine.  In fact, they treated him like a friend despite the fact that his behavior was killing him.  His doctors knew it.  They saw his progress or lack of it.  They knew he was killing himself, and the doctors guarded this relative's feelings by dismissing my concerns.  Back to Betaine Hydrochloride:

Research has shown that, after the age of 21 years, the concentration of hydrochloric acid in the stomach begins to fall progressively with age, a condition known as "hypochlorhydria."

By the time people reach the age of 40 or 50, stomach hydrochloric acid concentration is much lower and attributable to age-related immune and auto-immune conditions, including diabetes, cancer and obesity - particularly abdominal fat - hence the so-called "middle age spread." Use of betaine hydrochloride has frequently been credited with flattening the stomach for this reason.

When I read statements like these, I can't but hear the between-the-lines message of "You absolutely, positively need . . . ."  In this case, Betaine Hydrochloride.  There are benefits I am sure.  But what are they . . . specifically?

Before I answer that, apparently, Betaine Hydrochloride is the most effective form of hydrochloric acid.  Okay, good to know. 

One of the most important supportive digestive aids you can ever take is betaine HCL, which while well recognized as a source HCl (hydrochloride) for improving the food dissolving acid activity of digestive juices is less recognized as a source of  betaine, which is one of the least appreciated supplemental substances.  The technical name for betaine is trimethylglycine (TMG) and there are lots of neat things about it that don’t get a lot of attention.  ow about the benefits of Betaine Hydrochloride:

BENEFITS of BETAINE HYDROCHLORIDE
Now about the benefits of Betaine Hydrochloride.  According to this article, this supplement is wild with benefits.  

Benefits list #1:   

Detox, relaxation, muscle building, brain boosting and heart health, cancer fighting too; all of these benefits are a bonus and this exemplifies one of the coolest about nutritional supplementation.  When  you supplement with betaine HCL for your digestive system, you’ll improve liver functioning, build muscle, reduce your risk of heart disease, garner protection from excitotoxins and get a good night’s sleep to boot.  [my emphasis]  You take a drug and you have to deal with toxic side effects [that you don't always feel or recognize right away] and you take a nutritional supplement and you get so many extra beneficial effects it’s hard to keep track of them all.  Beneficial effects that have nothing to do with your original reason for taking the supplement in the first place!  [my emphasis]

Benefits list #2:
Blue Shield of California has its own list of benefits for Betaine Hydrochloride.  You can expect the list to be informative on the conservative side; in other words, perhaps only on conditions where improvements can be scientifically proven.  I presume.

Benefits list #3:

[Betaine Hydrochloride] enables the stomach to much more completely dissolve and process foods right down to base nutrients, as well as produce methyl groups, an important element in preventing cancer and other diseases.  

Edward Group clarifies these benefits even further: 

Betaine hydrochloride is a powerful digestive aid for people who may have been privy to a poor diet, prolonged dehydration and generalized stress. It has also been shown to offer digestive support to perimenopausal women and elderly individuals.

Betaine HCL has also been found to be beneficial in treating hypochlorhydria, a deficiency of stomach acid production. It is also a crucial compound in balancing homocysteine levels, a condition related to severe heart disease.

What is more, as we age, the body naturally produces less digestive enzymes. Due to this lowering in enzymatic activity, Betaine HCL levels also decrease. Depending on the individual, this can lead to sluggish digestion and poor mineral and nutrient absorption.

It also means that the body is not detoxifying itself in an optimal fashion. Things that the body would normally expel remain lodged in the system. This leads to toxic overload, and the type of redness related to chronic disease.

RISKS of LOW STOMACH ACID
The risks are serious.  I had no idea.  Maybe because of low stomach acid. So don't dismiss the importance of having optimum hydrochloric acid in your stomach.

Two key benefits [of stomach acid]: absorption and protection. When food hits your stomach, it’s your stomach’s gastric acid that begins the breakdown of protein and most minerals with pepsin to prepare for the important absorption of key nutrients (like iron B12, Vit. D and MORE) in those foods for your health and well-being. It also helps knock out bad or dangerous bacteria.

Low stomach acid also leads to non-optimal levels of neurotransmitters/amino acids (chemicals which transmit signals from one cell to another and play a huge role in your health and well-being).

Did you get that?  Did it sink in?  I hope so.  I noticed some terrific benefits the first night that I supplemented with Betaine Hydrochloride. That signaling I felt in the different segments of my body--lower leg, feet, torso, shoulders, etc.  I thought they were unpleasant side effects.  They may have been.  But I believe they were benefits.  Proof?  Hmm.  I'll know soon enough.

Acid reflux is caused by lactic acid, a warning sign for too low of a concentration of hydrochloric acid, causing incomplete digestion of food. Acid reflux needs to be treated by increasing hydrochloric acid, not antacids which will neutralize hydrochloric acid, making reflux worse as well as other health consequences.

And there's this: 

"Low hydrochloric acid is a potential cause of cancer and other immune and auto-immune conditions."

And then there's the relationship of low stomach acid with your hypothyroid.  

First, this:

If the "Th1" immune system is compromised or disabled, the "Th2" component of the immune system attempts to take over. Th2, not being equipped to function as Th1, perceives genuine body tissues as foreign invaders, attacking them as it would a bacterium or virus. Th1 suppression is also a root cause of auto-immune diseases such as allergies, celiac disease and arthritis.

Continue reading . . . .