Can Cobalt Help the Bacteria in Our Intestines Produce B12?

[robh]

While googling the source of B12, I found this forum post interesting:

http://www.veganforum.com/forums/showthread.php?6856-Where-exactly-does-Vitamin-B12-come-from

Here are some quotes:


Cobalt deficiency is far more dramatic in animals, particularly ruminants (cattle, deer, camels, and sheep) grazing on deficient pasture. These animals obtain all their B12 from their gut bacteria, but only if bacteria are provided cobalt salts from pasture. Legumes with less than 80 parts per billion (ppb) cobalt can't meet ruminant B12 needs.


To prevent or alleviate cobalt-B12 deficiency, farmers routinely add cobalt to animal feeds or salt licks. Some fertilize pastures with cobalt-enriched fertilizers.

Obviously, we aren't cattle, but we are animals and we need B12 too. We also have a lot of bacteria in our intestines. Is it possible that some of it can produce B12 if we supply the cobalt?

Cobalt content isn't even listed in nutrition tracking software! How much Cobalt does raw foodist consume? Is everyone pointing the finger at a lack of B12, when, really, it is a lack of Cobalt?

If anyone has any information on the topic, I am very interested to read it.

[MysticTree]

I certainly think the b12 issue is much deeper than simply not getting enough. I am interested to research this further.

[robh]

I agree. B12 is produced in animals. Are we not animals? If bacteria can produce B12 in other animals, can they not produce B12 for us? And Cobalt as it related to health seems to be an enigma.

Anyone out there have info on this?

[Charybdisjim]

No, a human being can not significantly increase the amount of vitamin b12 they absorb by adding cobalt or cobalt salt to their diet; at least they probably wouldn't want to. It is true that certain intestinal bacteria will produce vitamin b12 when cobalt salts are present. Ruminants (animals with multiple stomach compartments) are able to get vitamin b12 produced in their digestive tracts - some non-ruminant animals do obtain b12 this produced in their own colon, but they must eat feces to do so. This is why cobalt salts are sometimes added to pastures grazed on by the animals the article described and also why some animals do eat feces (including their own) from time to time.

The only cobalt you should be consuming should already be bound up in one of the many forms of vitamin b12 (or possibly some precursors and coenzymes) as you can not take advantage of production during the digestive process which involves the form of cobalt (salts) discussed in the article and I doubt you'd want to obtain it after digestion either. Besides that, consuming metallic cobalt or cobalt salts would be relatively ill advised as they are both somewhat toxic. I have heard that some b12 precursors can be converted to biologically available b12 by certain bacteria in your saliva - these bacteria are not converting cobalt salts but rather organic compounds in which a single cobalt atom is safely bound up which can serve as precursors for b12. Obviously this source of b12 would work best if it were working on a very regular component in your diet and would also require you chew your food thoroughly as the process would occur mostly during chewing.

One b12 source I know of that works pretty well with juicing is wheat-grass (might want to mix with other veggies for taste though). Mixing in a few ounces of wheat grass into a juicing mix at breakfast and dinner could actually provide more than enough for most people - and 10 oz per day would actually be sufficient to meet the needs of someone whose doctor had suggested supplementing their b12 intake for purposes of breast feeding or during pregnancy.

Nutritional yeast (yeast grown on material rich in vitamin b12 or b12 producing bacteria) may offer a possible vegan source for b12 if you are looking for one; some mushrooms are also found to be rich in vitamin b12 but studies have shown this is less to do with the specific species but rather what they are grown in. To this end some farmers have started producing b12 enriched mushrooms in a manner similar to b12 enriched yeast - though due to labelling standards being somewhat lax it is often hard to determine whether their methods could be considered vegan or not. It is possible to produce mushroom fertilizer that will yield mushrooms rich in b12 without using farm-raised animal products but whether or not an individual producer is doing this or not can be hard to tell.

[MysticTree]

If vegans eschewed foods that had animal manures used as fertiliser then they would have to always eat foods that had been raised in a non-organic way.

[Charybdisjim]

Yeah but some nutritional yeast and fortified mushrooms are fortified with concentrated animal-derived b12 rather than grown in b12 rich manure. That is to say that some of them are effectively just doused in the same b12 that would go into some decidedly non-vegan b12 supplement tablets. And as for creating a fortified growing environment without animal manure - I was more thinking about something that wouldn't have to rely on large scale animal ranches in order to be done on any significant scale itself.

[MysticTree]

Question about the wheat grass you mentioned. Lots of people grow wheatgrass on a piece of cloth. Does it need to be grown on soil to get the b12 benefit?

[Charybdisjim]

Wheat-grass actually has an ok b12 content on its own - about 0.3 micrograms per ounce of pre-juiced plant matter as a baseline content. Using organic fertilizer or soil with a high organic/loam content is shown to increase the b12 content of many plants grown in it so wheat-grass grown in it may have higher b12 content than wheat-grass grown on cloth alone. So wheat-grass grown in soil - particularly well fertilized soil - might be better in this regard but it is not entirely necessary to do so. Also its not one of the foodstuffs I've seen studies actually demonstrate increased b12 content based on growing methods so I can't say how much it would increase or if it would to any significant extent.

Since b12 absorption is vastly improved if you are getting moderate amounts of it regularly as opposed to super-dosing occasionally, just adding a modest amount of wheat to your normal diet would probably be a great way of getting vitamin b12 regardless of whether it was grown on cloth or in good soil. Nutritional content might be expected to be better for wheat-grass grown with organic fertilizer in rich soil, but if growing on cloth is the most convenient way for you to get it into your diet then the benefit of simply including it that way is probably more significant than the difference in nutrient content between growing methods.

Edit:
I should probably be clear though that there aren't any studies which confirm this would provide enough b12 on its own for people experiencing deficiency. There is a difference between b12 content in a food and what is actually absorbed and utilized by the body; it seems that some foods contain many b12 analogs which inhibit the absorption and utilization of b12 sometimes to such a degree that they do not represent a truly useful b12 source. It should certainly help, but if you find yourself experiencing b12 deficiency then do not hold out on getting yourself some of the better understood and demonstrated-effective supplemental sources of b12. I would still suggest considering certain more consistently reliable sources of b12 such as nutritional yeast as well (the more thoroughly detailed the labeling the better.)

[MysticTree]

I'm planning to switch to a soil medium because I need to grow more than I can seem to grow on fabric.

[Living Food]

Question about the wheat grass you mentioned. Lots of people grow wheatgrass on a piece of cloth. Does it need to be grown on soil to get the b12 benefit?

Growing it on soil would probably increase the b12 content - even if it doesn't it would still be a good idea to grow it in (fertile) soil so that you can take advantage of its propensity to pick up virtually every mineral present in its growing medium.

But I second that if it comes down to growing it on cloth or not at all, it's definitely better to grow it on cloth.