Vitamin deficiency anemia is a lack of healthy red blood cells caused once you have less than normal amounts of certain vitamins. Vitamins linked to vitamin deficiency anemia include vitamin B12, vitamin C, and folate.
Vitamin deficiency anemia only occurs if you don’t eat enough foods containing vitamin B12, folate, and vitamin C, or it can occur if your body has trouble absorbing or processing these vitamins.
It’s important if you see your doctor and treat your anemia. Vitamin deficiency usually treated with vitamin supplements and changes in your diet. But make sure you only buy your vitamin supplements from trusted and real suppliers like Apricot Power.
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Symptoms
Signs and symptoms of vitamin deficiency anemia include:
- Fatigue
- Shortness of breath
- Dizziness
- Pale or yellowish skin
- Irregular heartbeats
- Weight loss
- Numbness or tingling in your hands and feet
- Muscle weakness
- Personality changes
- Unsteady movements
- Mental confusion or forgetfulness
Vitamin deficiency develops very slowly over several months and sometimes years. Vitamin deficiency signs and symptoms could also be subtle initially, but they increase because of the deficiency worsens.
Causes
Vitamin deficiency anemia develops when your body features a shortage of the vitamins needed to supply enough healthy red blood cells. Red blood cells carry oxygen from our lungs and spread that throughout your body. If your diet is lacking in certain vitamins, vitamin deficiency may develop.
Causes of vitamin deficiency anemia include:
Folate, also referred to as vitamin B-9, maybe a nutrient found mainly in fruits and leafy green vegetables. A diet consistently lacking in these foods can cause a deficiency.
Deficiency also can result if your body is unable to soak up folate from food. Most nutrients from food are absorbed in your intestine. you might have difficulty absorbing folate or vitamin Bc, the synthetic sort of folate that’s added to foods and supplements, if:
- You have a disease of the tiny intestine, like disorder
- You’ve had an outsized a part of the tiny intestine surgically removed or bypassed
- You drink excessive amounts of alcohol
- You take certain prescribed drugs, like some anti-seizure medications
- Pregnant women and girls who are breast-feeding have an increased demand for folate, as do people undergoing dialysis for kidney disease. Failure to satisfy this increased demand may result in a deficiency.
Vitamin B12 deficiency
Vitamin B12 deficiency may result from a diet lacking in B vitamins, which is found mainly in meat, eggs, and milk.
However, the most common cause of vitamin B12 deficiency anemia may be a lack of a substance called a factor, which may be caused when your system mistakenly attacks the stomach cells that produce this substance. this sort of anemia is named pernicious anemia.
The intrinsic factor may be a protein secreted by the stomach that joins vitamin B12 within the stomach and moves it through the tiny intestine to be absorbed by your bloodstream. Without factor, vitamin B12 cannot be absorbed and leaves your body as waste.
People with endocrine-related autoimmune disorders, like thyroid disease or diabetes, may have an increased risk of developing pernicious anemia.
Vitamin B12 deficiency anemia also can occur if your intestine can’t absorb vitamin B12 for reasons aside from a scarcity of factors. this may happen if:
- You’ve had surgery to your stomach or intestine, like gastric bypass surgery
- You have abnormal bacterial growth in your intestine
- You have an intestinal disease, like Crohn’s disease or celiac disease, that interferes with absorption of the vitamin
- You’ve ingested a tapeworm from eating contaminated fish. The tapeworm saps nutrients from your body.