The Second Most Common Vitamin Deficiency
In America, as much as 40% of the population is vitamin B12 deficient.1 Vitamin B12 deficiency is the one of the most common vitamin deficiencies in the Western World. Why is this? Vitamin B12 is not an abundant vitamin in our food. However this should not be a problem because we were designed to depend upon B12 produced by certain friendly bacteria in our intestinal tracts. These bacteria are acquired from mother’s milk. Sadly, non-breast-fed children are seriously disadvantaged because they will not have as strong of an immune system as those who were breast-fed. While breast-fed children naturally acquire the correct bacteria, it seems a majority of people have lost it. Without the correct bacteria we become subject to all sorts of potential deficiencies and health problems.
Conventional medicine, ignoring the main issue, tends to focus on the retrieval of B12 from diet. This is part of the rationale for the consumption of animal products; they contain some B12. Hundreds of millions of people in India are vegetarians and it is rare for them have a B12 deficiency. Why? Because, in spite of the greater hardships in obtaining clean food, they are healthier than Americans, never had antibiotics and never lost their natural-to-humans friendly bacteria.
If we want good health, it is imperative that we have the correct type of friendly bacteria in our guts. It is certain species of bifidobacterium which create B12. Unfortunately, a very large percentage of people do not have the correct bacteria and most of these people have become overweight or obese. The predominant bacteria in obese people are lactobacillus (high-lactic acid-producing), which is also the most common probiotic sold today. The dominant bacteria in lean and healthy people are bifidobacteria.
How do so many who acquired the correct bacteria as a child become vitamin B12 deficient? How did they lose this natural-to-humans friendly bacteria? There are two main reasons: Poor diet and Antibiotics. Subsisting on a poor diet, such as the SAD (Standard American Diet), eventually destroys and mutates a normal intestinal environment. An environment, whether it is in the world around us or within us, always determines what species will live there. By eating foods that are completely unnatural to humans, we automatically change our gut microbials, from health producing to health issue producing. I would estimate that over 80% of the American population fits this profile.
As for Antibiotics…anti means against, and biotic means life. Thus, anti-biotics means anti-life; against life and that is exactly what so many drugs are; against life. Antibiotics kill off healthy natural-to-humans bacteria which left unchecked starts a downward spiral in a person’s health. Drugs, for the most part, are extreme unnatural chemicals. Over 90% of all the drugs doctors use, were not part of the human design. Drugs, not just anti-biotics, are unnatural substances that have become the number one cause of death and disease in the USA.
1https://www.pharmacytimes.com/publications/issue/2013/december2013/vitamin-b12-deficiency-serious-consequences