Screening of Psychiatric Patients for Hypovitaminosis B12

Clinical Trial of the Effect of Vitamin B12 in Elderly Subjects with Low Serum B12 Levels

“…Murphy et al (1969) doubt that it is even common enough to justify, at present, routine serum B12 assays on mental hospital admissions. During the trial a high proportion of the subjects showed evidence of an improvement with treatment whether B12 or the placebo was given, while in general no appreciable deterioration was detected.…”

“…Estimates of the prevalence of subnormal serum B12 levels in patients admitted to a mental hospital have been made by many workers (Edwin et al, 1965;Hansen et al, 1966;Hutner et al, 1967;Shulman, 1967a;Buxton et al, 1969;Murphy et al, 1969). These estimates vary from 0-02% to the high level of 15.40/,,, but no valid comparison has been made between subjects admitted to hospital and subjects in the community from which they have come.…”

“…These estimates vary from 0-02% to the high level of 15.40/,,, but no valid comparison has been made between subjects admitted to hospital and subjects in the community from which they have come. Furthermore, even if it were shown that there is a raised prevalence of low B12 levels in hospital admissions, it would still have to be shown that an association with psychiatric symptoms is not due to chance alone (Strachan and Henderson, 1965;Hansen et al, 1966;Murphy et al, 1969). Community surveys have shown a surprisingly high prevalence of pernicious anaemia (Mosbech, 1953;Girdwood et al, 1967). Though the community survey which preceded the trial described in the present report did not confirm these earlier reports of the prevalence of pernicious anaemia, yet a high prevalence of low serum B12 levels without anaemia was found (Elwood et al, 1970) as had been expected (Hansen et al, 1966;Girdwood et al, 1967).…”

What are the Psychiatric Manifestations of Vitamin B12 Deficiency?

“…The logic was simple: if clinicians were so diagnostically inexact, and vitamin B 12 deficiency were even an uncommon cause of reversible psychiatric symptoms, then our chronic mental health institutions must have many patients with vitamin B 12 deficiency‐induced psychiatric states that could be reversed if appropriately treated. A review of the literature 40,62–70 regarding the results of these inquiries is informative.…”

The use of Vitamin B12b in Psychiatric Practice

“…No attempt will be made here to review all these papers, but in general the percentages have run from 0.02% to a high of 16% (including borderline values). Of interest are the recent findings of Edwin (1965) 11 , Hansen (1969) 12 , Hutner (1967) 13 , 14 , Buxton (1969) 15 , Murphy (1969) 16 , Carney (1969) 17 and Philpott (1971) 18 .…”