From my site:
Quote:
Myth: Pernicious anemia is a type of anemia caused by B12 deficiency.
Fact: That is 19th-century and early 20th-century thinking. "Pernicious anemia" is not an anemia (or anaemia). Pernicious anemia is the inability of a stomach lining to secrete intrinsic factor, and that is the most common cause of severe B12 malabsorption.
Pernicious anemia was named as 19th-century doctors watched helplessly while a mysterious disease caused people to develop a type of anemia and die. Medical people then had no way of knowing that the "pernicious" ailment wasn't a type of anemia and that many others who were not anemic were dying as a result of the same cause.
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From the history you copied to your site:
Quote:
1929 -- William Castle discovered that “intrinsic factor” in the gastric mucosa was
needed to absorb the as yet unidentified active ingredient in liver, initially called
“extrinsic factor,” and that intrinsic factor was lacking in pernicious anemia patients.
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Karen Wrote:
Quote:
To me that is misleading. My mother had perncious anemia; until I had B12 replacement for quite a significant amount of b12, I had blue under my little fingernail that was nearly purple...
To me the other people you mention who were dying could have lacked hydrochloric acid and were therefore malabsorbing... and in the end dying.
I don't really know of any cases where someone had pernicious anemia and their blood work was normal in terms of the size of the corpuscles.
The larger corpuscles make for a lot of problems for people who suffer macrocytic anemia with their low B12.
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Karen,
The writing you have copied to your site states clearly that the belief
was that anemia always occurred when B12 deficiency was present.
Quote:
Because blood cells in people with B12 deficiency had been seen to
be larger than normal blood cells, B12 deficiency was linked with the
blood disorder, anemia; the fact that B12 deficiency was known to be
accompanied by nerve and neuropsychiatric problems was overlooked.
The governing belief was that without anemia, there was no B12 deficiency.
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I did not say it was the only cause of B12 malabsorption or B12 deficiency. True pernicious anemia is lack of intrinsic factor (not an anemia as was thought in the 18th century).
Also copied to your site:
Quote:
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Today it is clear that anemia is only one of many different symptoms of B12 deficiency. In fact, pernicious anaemia with its lack of intrinsic factor, is now thought to be relatively rare.
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In the section of my site you quote, I am addressing "pernicious anemia" and making the same point as above.
The reason I have spent so much time and energy addressing the problem is that many medical reference materials (thus most doctors) still believe that anemia must be present if a patient is B12 deficient. This is terribly dangerous, because many of us do not have large cells when deficient.
The large cells are not the problem. The large cells are the way most people become diagnosed and get treatment.
Those who do not have large cells are at terrible risk of not being diagnosed and treated.
Iron deficiency is common in people who malabsorb B12, and iron deficiency can make cells smaller. When the two exist together, cells can be normal sized or even small.
Folic acid can normalize the size of cells, and thus the sign a doctor might recognize is not present, but the B12 deficiency still is, and the damage continues.
If you had any understanding of the B12 issue you would know this and more.
Karen:
Quote:
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I don't really know of any cases where someone had pernicious anemia and their blood work was normal in terms of the size of the corpuscles.
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Here is just one very good source, Karen:
Goldman: Cecil Textbook of Medicine, 22nd ed., page 1056
"Several clinical studies document that a normal hematocrit and/or mean cell volume occur in at least 25 to 50% of patients whose neuropsychiatric abnormalities are caused by cobalamin deficiency and respond partially or completely to cobalamin therapy."
rose