Does anybody know about vitamin B12 deficiency, and the role Propionibacterium shermanii has to play. My 40 year old daughter has had a course of Vitamin B12 injections and is now looking to improve her diet. She has 3 year old twins, so needs to be in top form!

What is her diet like? What is her general health like? Is she taking any ongoing medication from her GP? Does she take a lot of antibiotics? Need to answer these to give a proper response

Graham thank you for your reply. No ongoing treatment at the moment from her GP, although she is going back for more tests in November, She has had very few courses of antibiotics, five in a lifetime perhaps. Her diet over the last four years has been varied and healthy, although it was not always so varied because of economics. She has never been a compulsive eater of cakes and sugary things. Since her teens she has always had low energy levels, and certainly looks better after the Vitamin B12 injections. It would seem that the science around Vitamin B12 in the gut is extremely complicated, but I would be very grateful if anyone could suggest food to eat that promotes the correct gut bacteria, and therefore more Vitamin B12.

I’d tackle it more holistically. Follow cleverguts diet – and these things should correct themselves. I’d need to see a 10day food diary to be more specific. Another option is send a stool sample to Brtish Gut. I ‘m happy to interpret the results.
OK?
Graham

As GrahamPhillips says, the detailed food and symptom diary really is key. In my years working in lifestyle healthcare I very rarely saw a properly balanced and varied diet. A diet does not have to be obviously unhealthy to be imbalanced.

Oftentimes cheaper foods are as good or better nutritionally than the pricey ones marketed to us as ‘healthy’. Compare canned oily fish (sardines/ mackerel) or chicken livers to the same weight of chicken breast on the Self Nutrition Data website. The difference in vitamins, minerals, essential fatty acids is truly shocking.

The issues could easily stem from having to ‘eat for three’ during pergnancy and breastfeeding, plus any morning sickness, sleepless nights …

Other nutrient dense, reasonably priced and/ or convenient foods that are often undereaten include canned beans and lentils, seeds, whole eggs, traditionally aged cheeses (inc. goats, sheeps), frozen berry mixes, coloured cruciferous vegetables (red cabbage, broccoli, flower sprouts/ kalettes, green Romanesco cauliflower, purple or orange cauli), brightly coloured root veg (red onions, beetroot, purple potatoes, purple carrots, orange sweet potato, purple yam).

I live in an ethnically diverse, very deprived city – no fancy farmers or organic markets – and can still get a surprising variety of these vegetables.

Hi happychick, I was wondering what you had heard about Propionibacterium shermanii.