Vitamin B12 is a large and complex structure that can help prevent cancer and cardiovascular disease and increases energy production in your body from fats and proteins. As you age, your body becomes decreasingly able to absorb vitamin B12, leading to deficiency. Inflammation of your stomach may accelerate vitamin B12 deficiency.
Stomach Inflammation
Your stomach must have adequate acids and enzymes to remove vitamin B12 from the food you eat. When your stomach experiences inflammation, it may become less capable of utilizing vitamin B12, which can lead to deficiency. The New York University Langone Medical Center reports that such stomach inflammation may be the result of autoimmune diseases, iron deficiency anemia, bacteria infection or chronic alcohol abuse.
Pernicious Anemia
Pernicious anemia affects how well your body can produce red blood cells, but it is actually the end stage of an autoimmune inflammation in your stomach, according to the Linus Pauling Institute. If your body has an adequate amount of vitamin B12 when you develop pernicious anemia, it may take many years to show signs of deficiency. Treatment for the disease may require you to receive injections of vitamin B12 to bypass your inflamed stomach, or a high oral dose around 1 mg per day in hopes of around 1 percent being absorbed.
Signs of Deficiency
If you are suffering from vitamin B12 deficiency as a result of stomach inflammation, you may experience a number of neurological symptoms. These include things like fatigue, shortness of breath and tingling or numbness in your fingers and toes. You may also experience gastrointestinal distress like diarrhea, appetite loss and constipation as a result of the stomach inflammation causing your vitamin B12 deficiency.
Supplement Safety
Treating vitamin B12 deficiency with doses substantially above the recommended dietary allowance value of 2.4 mcg is fairly safe. Your body naturally discards excessive vitamin B12, and your stomach inflammation is likely already having a significant impact on your ability to absorb the nutrient. However, you should always speak to your health-care provider before taking supplemental vitamin B12. Some medications, such as anticonvulsants, chemotherapy drugs and bile acid sequestrants, can lower your body's ability to absorb vitamin B12 even further.
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