Vitamin B12 - Are You Deficient?

The prescription for a plant-based diet overlooks vitamin B12 deficiency that is primarily present in animal-based diets

- Meenakshi Sushma

When Basant Manjari, a 65-year-old woman from Rourkela, Odisha, started losing control of her hand, her family members went into a tizzy. She would spill or drop the cup of tea she was holding. Doctors told her she was suffering from vitamin B12 deficiency. A water-soluble vitamin, B12 is the most critical element in the metabolism of every cell in the human body. Deficiency can cause anemia, weakness of limbs and dementia. Pregnant women who lack this vitamin can give birth to brain-damaged babies, which can lead to autism.

India doesn’t have nation-wide data on B12 deficiency. But there is wide acceptance among the medical fraternity that a large number of people—as many as those suffering from vitamin D deficiency—have this problem. “About 47 percent of people in northern India are vitamin B12 deficient. It is an endemic problem,” says Rajiv Singla, an endocrinologist at the Kalpavrisksh Health Care, Dwarka.

Now, Manjari is at the center of a debate over which diet will enable the world to meet the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGS). Earlier this year, the eat-Lancet Commission on Food, Planet, and Health published a report which stated that to meet the SDGS, the world must shift to plant-based diets as it is more sustainable than an animal-based diet.