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Low ad12 w/ goodmb12?

xks201

Senior Member
Messages
740
Please comment if you have any thoughts whatsoever.

Is it possible to have low adenosylcobalamin and normal mb12 levels? My nutri eval showed 0 succinic acid. Lol. If that doesnt scream ad12 deficiency i dont know what does. I also had high regular b12 blood test results from a separate test before i supplemented with any form of b12. I have ran my genes also and im not sure if any one of them is capable of showing the above scenario as a mutation or two in some gene???

I was under the impression that mb 12 efficiently converted to ad12. From my experience this does not seem to be the case at least in my body. I sesm to get some added benefit from methylcobalamin though nowhere near enough. I get heart palps majorly and blood pressure spikes if i dont take ad12 as if im going to have a heart attack. Lol. My heart checks out fine apparently aside from the symptoms otherwise.

It is confusing though because my homocysteine and methylmalonic acid were great. Succinic acid nonexistent and blood serum b12 (regular lab corp blood draw test) elevated like 50 pct above the top of the reference range.

Symptomatically the mb will help with some confusion. Perhaps maybe like one one hundredth of it converts to ab12 it feels like. I read online that majority of b12 is stored in the liver as adb12. Is that true? I dont think i read it in a study. Hydroxocobalamin really doesnt do anything for me. Mb12 really doesnt do a whole lot for me either.

Im thinking due to the multi symptom relief i get from adb12 and my labs that i have some mutation causing adb12 deficiency. It was my understanding that if methylmalonic acid and homocysteine were good that endogenously converted methylcobalamin was working. My theory is that just my bodys conversion to adenosylcobalamin is off. Any thoughts? I can post my genetic mutations if anyone knows what specific ones i should post here.
 
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xks201

Senior Member
Messages
740
0 is in the normal range for succinic acid. I don't know why they set an artificially higher threshold.
My blood b12 levels are through the roof. Symptom wise one or the other or both appear not to be converting properly.
 

Lynn_M

Senior Member
Messages
208
Location
Western Nebraska
This 1980 abstract says defective adenosylcobalamin could be linked to transcobalamin II deficiency http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6775148. Check out your TCN1 and TCN2 genes.

Since your MMA was great, maybe your proposal that zero succinic acid means low adenosylcobalamin isn't correct, or at least it's not a straightforward relationship. And in saying your MMA was great, I hope you know that it's best to have lower, not higher, MMA values.
 
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Lynn_M

Senior Member
Messages
208
Location
Western Nebraska
I found some interesting points in Wikipedia's B12 article at Wikipedia . The article makes the point that
"there is no 'gold standard' test for B12 deficiency because as a B12 deficiency occurs, serum values may be maintained while tissue B12 stores become depleted. Therefore, serum B12 values above the cut-off point of deficiency do not necessarily indicate adequate B12 status."
That's not even considering that the usual cut-off point for deficiency, a measly 200 or so, in itself can't be interpreted to mean adequate B12 status.

The other point is
"Hereditary defects in production of the transcobalamins and their receptors may produce functional deficiencies in B12 and infantile megaloblastic anemia, and abnormal B12 related biochemistry, even in some cases with normal blood B12 levels."
So @xks201, you could look at your TCN1 and TCN2 genes to see if you have any polymorphisms.

Another website says:
"Adenosylcobalamin is also an 'active' B12 form, making this coenzyme immediately available for use by the body. It is required for an enzyme known as MCM (Methylmalonyl Coenzyme A Mutase), which resides in the mitochondria and is needed to make succinyl CoA to produce energy in the citric acid cycle."

So maybe the problem is not enough MCM, which is encoded by the MUT gene. See Methylmalonyl-CoA_mutase at Wikipedia. I'd like to see something which shows the pathway to make adenosylcobalamin. Edit: I think I found it in figure 2 of this PubMed article "Genetic and Genomic Systems to Study Methylmalonic Acidemia". From my reading, however, it seems any defects in cobalamin pathways result in either elevated MMA or homocysteine.

This PubMed article "Genetic Disorders of vitamin B12 metabolism: eight complementation groups" discusses the complexities of what goes wrong in each complementation group.
 
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sscobalt93

Senior Member
Messages
125
Have you tried out ad12 to see if it helps you out? It's the only b12 I can tolerate. I used to be able to tolerate hydroxo b12, but now it makes me more brain fogged. Methyl b12 has caused the same issues as well. I am going to try to methyl b12 soon again when I get my Thorne #12 its a small dose, but that's exactly what I am looking for right now. I can tolerate folinic acid pretty well. Although I am a1298c mutation.

One 'side effect' I get from ad12 is my hair grows super fast. I went from not having to shave but once a month to having to shave once a week. I am a youngin' so don't judge haha.
 
Messages
10
I know that Amy Yasko says MMA is a measure of adenosylcobalamin, rather than methylcobalamin. I seem to recall reading something in a medical research abstract recently that supports that statement. So if your MMA looks great (meaning nice and low) then that would seem to be evidence that your adenosylcobalamin level is okay. But if you'd been supplementing adenosylcobalamin when you had the testing done, then there is still the possibility that your body doesn't convert methylb12 to adenosylb12, and that your levels looked good due solely to supplementation of adenosylb12.