People with primary Sjögren's syndrome are six times more likely to suffer from vitamin B12 deficiencies.
Don't store avocado like this: it's dangerousPeople with primary Sjögren's syndrome they are six times more likely to suffer from vitamin B12 deficiencies. This is why a treatment with this vitamin in affected patients can change the path of the disease.
To say this is the study "Association of Primary Sjögren's Syndrome and Vitamin B12 Deficiency: A Cross-Sectional Case-Control Study", published in the Journal of Clinical Medicine, which starts from an assumption: a deficiency of vitamin B12 is observed in about 1,5% of the general population, reaching 15% among the over 60s. Although most of the causes are well known, about 1 in 10 cases of vitamin B12 deficiency has an unexplained origin.
Vitamin B12, also known as cobalamin, is a key nutrient for cell health, participating in red blood cell formation, cell metabolism, nerve cell function and DNA synthesis.
Sjögren's syndrome
Primary Sjögren's syndrome is an immunological disease characterized mainly by dry mouth and eyes, but can also involve other organs and systems, such as the central and peripheral nervous systems and joints.
The disease affects women more frequently, especially between the ages of 30 and 50, and its causes are not yet well known.
A systematic review
Previous studies had already suggested a possible association between vitamin B12 and primary Sjögren's syndrome, but the lack of control groups prevented researchers from drawing firm conclusions.
Now, researchers from Angers University Hospital in France have conducted a prospective case-control analysis to clarify the link between primary Sjögren deficiency and vitamin B12.
The study included 126 patients admitted to the internal medicine department: 21 patients with Sjögren and 105 patients without, who serve as a control group and selected to match the patients in terms of age and gender. Their mean age was 70 years, and 92,5% of the participants in both groups were women.
Patients were excluded if they were receiving B12 supplements, had a genetic cause for B12 deficiency, or if they had additional conditions associated with low vitamin B12 levels, such as pernicious anemia - marked by insufficient red blood cells being produced because the intestine cannot absorb vitamin B12 from food.
The results showed that Sjögren's patients had significantly lower B12 levels than the control group and that a deficiency of this vitamin was more common in these people than in controls (42,9% versus 11,4%).
Specifically, Sjögren's patients were 6,45 times more likely to have a vitamin B12 deficiency.
"We showed that primary Sjögren's syndrome was independently associated with B12 deficiency, even after excluding associated pernicious anemia, with six times more B12 deficiencies in patients with pSS than in control," the researchers wrote.
A result that suggests the need for "screening and treatment of vitamin B12 deficiency in patients with pSS", they conclude.
Fonte: Journal of Clinical Medicine / Sjogrens syndrome news
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