Volume : IX, Issue : VIII, August - 2019

Review On Vitamin–B12 Deficiency Induced By Long Term Treatment Of Metformin

Karthika Manickam, Nancy Sinha

Abstract :

Metformin is said to be the first line drug for type2 diabetes mellitus. It improves the sensitivity of peripheral insulin and reduces the cardiovascular mortality rate. Abdominal distress, diarrhoea, lactic acidosis are the main side effects associated with metformin.. Many reports suggest that metformin causes vitamin–b12 deficiency due to malabsorption in the terminal ileum. Deficiency of vitamin–b12 particularly related to drug metformin, not the disease itself. The biomarker MethylMalonylCoA(MMA) is highly sensitive to interpret vitamin–b12 deficiency than Homocysteine.(HCY) The common oral symptom tongue pain erythema and beefy red patches are indications of vitamin–b12 deficiency. The vegetarian patients are more prone than non–vegetarians. Vitamin–b12 deficiency may lead to permanent neurological damage if it is misdiagnosed as diabetic neuropathy. Several studies reported that vitamin–b12 deficiency is related to a longer duration of treatment for more than 4 years and dose over 1000mg /day. According to the studies metformin competes with calcium mucosal memane cause a lack of absorption of vitamin–b12 which can be reversed by oral calcium supplementation daily. Our review also confirmed that vitamin–b12 deficiency can be corrected by routine supplementation therapy. This review article offers a current perspective on vitamin B12 deficiency due to metformin therapy and vitamin B12 supplementation in diabetes mellitus type 2 patients.

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Article: Download PDF   DOI : 10.36106/ijar  

Cite This Article:

REVIEW ON VITAMIN-B12 DEFICIENCY INDUCED BY LONG TERM TREATMENT OF METFORMIN, Karthika Manickam, Nancy Sinha INDIAN JOURNAL OF APPLIED RESEARCH : Volume-9 | Issue-8 | August-2019

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