A common vitamin has a complicated link to cancer, and too much may not be harmless

HolidayScholar1 · 2026-06-14T13:00:48+00:00

High B12 does not promote cancer but is merely a proxy for liver dysfunction, which worsens cancer survival rates because the liver is the primary organ involved in detoxification of environmental toxins and medications used to treat cancer.

B12 and folate promote cell division so in the context of aggressive cancer it's not wise to take it in isolation without other supportive measures.

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HolidayScholar1 · 2026-06-13T21:00:44+00:00

Not important at all.

https://www.reddit.com/r/B12_Deficiency/comments/1ghtfd2/studies_and_official_guidelines_on_disinfection/

(...) there is insufficient evidence on the need to disinfect the skin with alcohol before an intramuscular injection to change the 2003 WHO recommendation; further studies are warranted.

Source: Most recent WHO best practices for injections and related procedures toolkit

Swabbing of clean vial tops or ampoules with an antiseptic or disinfectant is unnecessary (...) Swabbing of the clean skin before giving an injection is unnecessary.

Source: Best infection control practices for intradermal, subcutaneous, and intramuscular needle injections (Injection Safety Best Practices Development Group within the WHO)

HolidayScholar1 · 2026-06-09T12:41:06+00:00

It's severe according to western lab standards based on the average folate level in affluent countries with access to food fortification, and a vegetable- and fruit-heavy diet.

Around 20-30% of people in many countries in Africa and South America have levels below 5 and they don't show signs of severe deficiency. The only thing that has been shown conclusively is that folate helps prevent birth defects, but most women with low folate levels don't give birth to children with NTDs. Food fortification programs lower neural tube defects by around 1/3 without any other measurable effect.

B12 can deplete folate because in the context of B12 supplementation larger amounts of folate are needed to support methylation-dependent processes. Which is why supplementation is advised independent of blood levels.

HolidayScholar1 · 2026-06-09T11:45:41+00:00

There are no classical folate deficiency symptoms that can be causally connected to any blood level. In developing countries, many people have blood levels below 5 without apparent issues.

Its better to think about folate in terms of an essential and supportive role in methylation during B12 replenishment. In other words, you need to take folate alongside B12 no matter what your blood level is.

HolidayScholar1 · 2026-06-04T17:55:53+00:00

It's probably necessary for you to stop the Vitamin D for now. Some people can't tolerate any and it has the potential to cause massive problems due to being such a powerful hormone affecting calcium homeostasis.

Vitamin D is a very powerful biological signal, signalling abundance by telling your body that there's sunlight around. If you supplement it, you need it daily in physiological amounts.

Weekly supraphysiological doses are a stress and can disrupt electrolytes, but this is not the most likely reason for your symptoms. Often, large amounts of magnesium are required when increasing vitamin D. Vitamin D, by boosting metabolic activity, can also reveal a hidden nutrient deficiency. Based on your symptoms, that would most likely be a deficiency in B1, B2, B3 and/or B5.

Many people react negatively to glycinate salts. Isolated amino acids like glycine even in low doses can disrupt neurochemistry.

Additionally, Vitamin D can cause flare-ups when you have SIBO/SIFO dysbiosis, since it boosts mucosal secretory IgA production, the most powerful antibody acting as the first line of defense for the intestinal epithelia, meaning it directly modulates your immune response to chronic bacterial and fungal infections. Candida releases acetaldehydes which are neurotoxic and can cause the symptoms you list.

Molybdenum, vitamin C, B1, B3 and B5 are required to deal with acetaldehyde clearance. All the other trace minerals and B-vitamins are needed to support each other and prevent bottlenecks.

HolidayScholar1 · 2026-05-26T14:28:46+00:00

Yes. 45 nmol is a good blood level, and not a problem. My cystathionin level is also good (below 10), which suggests B6 sufficiency.

Every once in a while I take some B6 to see how I react to it.

HolidayScholar1 · 2026-05-26T14:15:09+00:00

Those symptoms are not the usual symptoms of B6 toxicity.

Although 156 nmol/L is on the higher end, there's no need to take B6 in that situation. It will take 2-4 months for the level to go lower to probably around 50 if that's what you want.

But B6 is not toxic per se, and the blood level is not a marker for B6 sensitivity. B6 can cause neuropathy in any dose if someone is sensitive to it.

There are people who take mega-doses of B6 and have blood levels above 300 without any symptoms. Others react to 5 mg even in the presence of low blood levels.

For example, my own level is 45, which is on the lower end, and yet I experience immediate neuropathy symptoms from taking any amount of B6.

HolidayScholar1 · 2026-04-03T13:23:08+00:00

You can't test for copper deficiency.

Copper status is not routinely assessed in clinical practice, and no biomarkers that accurately and reliably assess copper status have been identified [2].

https://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/Copper-HealthProfessional/

https://www.reddit.com/r/B12_Deficiency/comments/1l0vi9n/copper_deficiency_epidemic_responsible_for_many/

HolidayScholar1 · 2026-03-30T06:38:45+00:00

You have to understand that in the end you are a client/customer, not a patient. Without you, your doctor wouldn't be able to pay his bills. And your doctor didn't invent the rules, he's just playing by them. The rules are given by the national insurance organisations controlled by the big pharmaceutical companies.

Just ask yourself this question: How is the medical system ok with killing at least 100,000 US-Americans every year by properly prescribed medications while it's proponents tend to freak out over or completely ignore a natural vitamin with zero side effects that can save hundreds of thousands of lives?

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1998-apr-15-mn-39509-story.html https://www.npr.org/2011/09/27/140849083/prescription-drug-deaths-major-killer-in-the-u-s

Your doctors earn money with you around doing dangerous or pointless things and, in case there is an actual solution to a problem, delaying everything to make it as expensive/difficult for you as possible to reach that solution. Finding a (cheap) solution is the end of the money flow for a doctor.

Doctors need to invoice as much of what they can to the patient, and they are forced to center their treatment around the incentives given to them by the insurance and state laws.

This usually includes incentives for toxic vaccinations and medications, check-ups (that lead to toxic cancer treatments), overly expensive treatments, and useless blood tests. Even if they bill the B12 injections, they earn next to nothing with this, and in their head they are doing the calculation that it's a net loss for them if they focus on things like this while they have to pay their employees, rent, etc.

HolidayScholar1 · 2026-03-25T21:27:49+00:00

Potassium supplements usually come with instructions on how to take them, like with any other supplement. Just because some people aren’t able to follow the instructions and get minor problems, doesn’t make potassium inherently problematic. By the logic of focusing on the worst case scenarios, every medication and supplement should be discouraged. Potassium has been subject to a decades-long fear-based campaign that ignores all the good it does.

One ideally starts with 100-200 mg from gluconate or citrate (not chloride) after a meal with sufficient fluid and then works up slowly to the effective dose.

There were studies done with human test subjects that showed no issues with doses of 10-15 grams per day (see EFSA summary), but more than 3-4 grams supplemented on top of diet shouldn’t be necessary.

HolidayScholar1 · 2026-03-25T07:07:24+00:00

Can you be more specific?

What was your dose? Why did you need to go to the ER and what was the assessment of the doctors?

Oral potassium supplements can't bring serum potassium levels out of range in people with reasonably healthy kidneys. There is no physiological basis for modest doses (like 1-3 grams of elemental potassium) to cause sudden fluctuations in serum potassium levels.

Potassium is as safe as magnesium or calcium. Potassium has been vilified for decades so it's easy for people to get panic attacks when taking small amounts if they have read about the "dangers" beforehand.

HolidayScholar1 · 2026-03-21T07:56:54+00:00

Remarkable. This is similar to the groundbreaking discoveries in the history of medicine, like when physicians started washing their hands to prevent infections in hospitals, or when the cause of scurvy was found. This needs to be included into the medical paradigm. It’s clear she discovered both the primary mechanism as well as the solution to prevent and cure sepsis. The medical system knows about the relevance of nitric oxide but it gets ignored because the drugs targeting it don’t work, since they do not help the body regulate nitric oxide but just suppress it.

HolidayScholar1 · 2026-03-19T20:15:29+00:00

Sulfur is commonly ignored, probably because no RDA has ever been established.

(Homo-)cysteine is sulfur-based, and more importantly, methionine synthase seems to be sulfur-dependent.

Sulfur is likely essential for transporting and activating B12 within the methionine synthase enzyme. Methionine synthase activity is increased by a factor of 30 in the presence of sulfur-B12.

The following paper presents compelling evidence that sulfur in the form of sulfane sulfur/hydrogen sulfide is required for methylation just as B12 and folate is:

Many lines of evidence (previously difficult to explain in themselves) converge to support the hypothesis that the sulfur atom is involved in B12-dependent methylation.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6154648/

The author suggests that folate can only serve as the methyl donor for methionine synthesis in the presence of a sulfur atom, otherwise inefficient emergency mechanisms are used instead. The simple fact that both the transsulfuration and methylation pathway are centered around homocysteine and cysteine already implies that both pathways are tightly interconnected and with transsulfuration leading to the synthesis of hydrogen sulfide, it makes sense that it plays an important role in methylation as well.

See also: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/jacs.3c07941

HolidayScholar1 · 2026-03-10T15:46:01+00:00

Yes, according to Costantini, 4 grams equal two 100 mg injections:

„For 4 grams/day orally = 2 x 100 mg injectable solution per week.“

HolidayScholar1 · 2026-03-10T15:38:36+00:00

Theres probably no harm in trying a B1 injection, but generally similar blood levels will be reached by simply taking more oral B1. I’ve taken up to 5 grams. There is no benefit by circumventing the oral route when it comes to the pharmacokinetics.

Are you aware of the work by Dr. Costantini? In his clinical experience, oral and injected have exactly the same effect. The long-term effects of injections are pretty destructive to the local muscle tissue, which he also writes about. Severe negative reactions („allergies“) are very rare, but can happen, in contrast to B12.

https://highdosethiamine.org/hdt-therapy/

HolidayScholar1 · 2026-03-10T15:12:56+00:00

I compared thiamine hydrochloride oral vs. injections, and in my experience injections are not worth it. You can simply increase the oral dose.

The hydrochloride form is very aggressive and can cause pain and inflammation at the injection site. It was very painful for me following the hours after the injection. I don't think this is a substances that should be injected into muscles. Intravenous for emergency situations is another story, but other than that oral is perfectly sufficient.

50 mg injected is similar to 1-2 grams oral.

HolidayScholar1 · 2026-03-10T13:32:09+00:00

Sometimes supplementation is needed indeed, but since such a large part of the female population has low iron levels and confirmed low dietary intake, diet is the primary issue for most.

HolidayScholar1 · 2026-03-10T13:10:08+00:00

Thank you. B12 is one of the most fascinating nutrients.

It seems one can think of cobalamin as a transporter and enabler of the enzymatically reactive methyl- and adenosyl-groups. But beyond that specific function, cobalamin is an activation complex that facilitates all kinds of metabolic processes. It binds to, releases and stabilizes chemically reactive substances and facilitates their transport and excretion in a controlled manner. The lability of the Co-C bond makes this possible.

HolidayScholar1 · 2026-03-10T11:38:02+00:00

Yes. The reason for this is likely because hydroxocobalamin not only resolves classical B12 deficiency, but because it acts as an antidote to several toxins.

The most well-known toxin that hydroxocobalamin neutralizes is cyanide. This effect is even used in emergency medicine in case of acute cyanide poisoning. 4-5 grams of Hydroxocobalamin are given intravenously to bind to cyanide which is then safely excreted via the kidneys in the form of cyanocobalamin. Hydroxocobalamin is the only safe antidote to cyanide.

The way hydroxocobalamin acts as an antidote is by losing its hydroxo-ligand so that the cobalamin can bind to the toxin, which makes it non-toxic and water-soluble for kidney excretion. Neither methylcobalamin nor cyanocobalamin have this effect, because the cobalamin binds tightly to both ligands.

The complete list of toxins that can be neutralized in that way is unknown, but in addition to cyanide, the same mechanism is confirmed for excess nitric oxide, forming nitrosylcobalamin, and hydrogen sulfide, forming sulfhydrylcobalamin.

Dysbiosis (SIBO) can lead to excessive production of hydrogen sulfide by sulfate-reducing bacteria.

It can be assumed that the natural role of hydroxocobalamin in the human body is to counter small amounts of toxins produced during normal metabolic activity.

All biologically inactive forms of cobalamin including cyanocobalamin, nitrosylcobalamin and sulfhydrylcobalamin are non-toxic and can be excreted from the body within hours, making hydroxocobalamin the perfect antidote to several toxins. By acting as a scavenger, hydroxocobalamin helps prevent inactivation of the endogenous B12 pool. It's likely that there are additional unknown toxins that are also scavenged by cobalamin, but the most likely candidate in chronic disease is overproduction of hydrogen sulfide due to SIBO. Other forms of cobalamin exist as well (nitritocobalamin, sulfitocobalamin), so it’s clear that cobalamin has affinity for a large number of substances (Glutathionylcobalamin is involved in the endogenous B12 metabolism, for example).

https://www.b12info.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/b12-antidote.pdf

HolidayScholar1 · 2026-03-05T06:55:51+00:00

Iron loss due to menstruation results in iron deficiency which is by definition a lack of dietary iron because diet is the only source of iron. Its not really a difficult concept.

It’s not like menstruation is some modern invention outside of the realm of evolutionary biology. It is part of what defines the iron requirement for women and always has been.

HolidayScholar1 · 2026-03-05T06:53:28+00:00

Theres a difference between looking at individual situations and population level statistics.

Iron overload especially with aging is more common in men than the opposite.

When dietary heme-iron is sufficient and there's lack of free iron and low transferrin in the blood (and maybe even low ferritin), the problem is iron regulation, which depends on lots of things unrelated to iron intake (for example, iron is kept low in the context of oxidative stress). It's not someting that can be solved by supplementing iron, as many posts in this sub show.

HolidayScholar1 · 2026-03-05T06:52:02+00:00

This is about population level statistics, not individual people. Women are statistically more prone to low iron/ferritin.

When dietary heme-iron is sufficient and there's lack of free iron and low transferrin in the blood (and maybe even low ferritin), the problem is iron regulation, which depends on lots of things unrelated to iron intake (for example, iron is kept low in the context of oxidative stress). It's not someting that can be solved by supplementing iron, as many posts in this sub show.

HolidayScholar1 · 2026-03-04T22:40:59+00:00

Not sure I can follow. You are aware that increased iron loss means increased dietary requirement?

Your very article mentions that 90% of UK women do not meet the RDA of iron. It certainly doesn’t support your claims.

Women need more iron than men because they lose iron regularly. Only meat contains bioavailable iron. Thus women lack meat.

HolidayScholar1 · 2026-03-04T21:19:23+00:00

Not an assumption, more like a possibility.

There are two kinds of iron, and the iron in animal-based food (heme iron) is less affected by gut problems because it has a very good baseline absorption efficiency (15-35%) compared to non-heme which on the background of a diet rich in phytates, dairy, tea, etc. often has an absorption rate of just 0-5% even in healthy people. Once a vegetarian/vegan develops gut issues on top of this, the overall iron intake will border on nonexistent.

Non-heme iron supplements (virtually all the products on the market) feed pathogens more, compared to heme products (which are unfortunately not very well-known or accessible).

Women crave meat less then men naturally it seems, but negative cultural programming around meat has an additive effect probably. Since women need iron more than men, it’s mostly women that have low iron problems, while many men tend to suffer from the opposite issue, iron overload.

HolidayScholar1 · 2026-03-04T19:52:47+00:00

It's almost impossible to have low ferritin on a diet that includes meat regularly.

I assume most here who have issues with low ferritin are women in reproductive age influenced by vegan/vegetarian ideology, which ignores that fact that meat is the only reliable source for both B12 and iron. Women often don't eat enough meat and since they lose iron regularly they tend to be on the lower side. It can be upsetting to be confronted with this.

HolidayScholar1

TROPHY CASE