Effect of Food on Absorption of Radioactive Vitamin B12

The reliability and reproducibility of the Schilling test in primary malabsorptive disease and after partial gastrectomy

“…Whether food affects the absorption of radioactive vitamin B12 as judged by the Schilling test, as opposed to the faecal excretion test, has not been established; until this has been done, it would be unwise to compare the two sets of results further. It is, however, plain from the results reported by Deller et al (1961) and in this paper that the mechanisms which may occur after partial gastrectomy and lead to vitamin B12 deficiency are much more complex than has been believed hitherto, and still presents some unique problems worthy of investigation.…”

“…There were no obvious exogenous factors which might have been responsible for the wide range of results in our cases. The role of exogenous factors has been emphasized by Deller, Germar, and Witts (1961) who observed that the effect of a vitamin B12-free meal was to increase the absorption of radioactive vitamin B12, as judged by single faecal excretion tests in post-gastrectomy patients but not in normal subjects or in patients with Addisonian pernicious anaemia. The effect of food was comparable to that of added intrinsic factor in some cases, and they therefore concluded that the administration of a fasting dose of radioactive vitamin B12 was not a reliable method of determining the ability of the post-gastrectomy patient to absorb vitamin B12.…”

Systematic Review on Daily Vitamin B12 Losses and Bioavailability for Deriving Recommendations on Vitamin B12 Intake with the Factorial Approach

“…Unfortunately, information on age, sex and ethnicity of the study populations was not provided for most of the studies. Serum vitamin B12 concentrations were reported to be normal in all but one study that included subjects with low serum concentrations [23], but only five studies [8,9,10,27,28,36] actually reported concentrations (137-546 pmol/l).…”

“…Absorption of crystalline vitamin B12 is usually not affected in subjects with food-bound malabsorption, and therefore most European countries recommend elderly people to consume a high proportion of their vitamin B12 intake as fortified foods and supplements [1]. In two studies investigating absorption from bread, squash or milk fortified with 0.25-0.5 µg vitamin B12, an absorption between 55 and 74% was observed [12,36]. …”

Some metabolic and haematological effects of oesophago-jejunostomy with by-pass of the stomach

“…Taking the 94 subjects who have had duplicate tests, under apparently similar conditions, since the introduction of the test in our department, the difference was as much as 0 to 22% (mean 7%, S.D. 6%) (Deller, Germor, and Witts, 1961). The latter figures include patients who had tests at intervals of several months or even years and may include some who were unreliable in collecting stools although they all denied this source of error.…”