Hostname: page-component-77c89778f8-gvh9x Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-18T07:58:11.966Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Vitamin B12 Deficiency and Psychiatric Illness

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2018

R. Shulman
R. Shulman*
Affiliation:
University Department of Psychological Medicine, Southern General Hospital, Glasgow, The Bethlem Royal Hospital and The Maudsley Hospital
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Many psychiatric symptoms have been described in pernicious anaemia, including depression, manic excitement, paranoid states, confusional episodes, and dementia. Although vitamin B12 deficiency is known to produce neurological symptoms there is much less certainty about its role in producing mental symptoms. Despite this uncertainty, it has been asserted that carrying out vitamin B12 assays on psychiatric patients will enable doctors to cure for good severe disabling disease which otherwise may end in chronicity (Edwin et al., 1966). Routine examinations to exclude pernicious anaemia have been advocated for all psychiatric patients (Strachan and Henderson, 1965; Hunter and Matthews, 1965). A prudent preliminary is a critical evaluation of the causal relationship between vitamin B12 deficiency and individual psychiatric syndromes.

Type
Research Article
Information
The British Journal of Psychiatry , Volume 113 , Issue 496 , March 1967 , pp. 252 - 256
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1967 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Adams, R. D., and Kubik, C. S. (1944). “Subacute combined degeneration of the brain in pernicious anaemia.” New Eng. J. Med., 231, 1–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Edwin, E., Holten, K., Norum, K. R., Schrumpf, A., and Skaug, O. E. (1965). “Vitamin B12 hypovitaminosis in mental disease.” Acta med. Scand., 177, 689–699.Google Scholar
Edwin, E., Holten, K., Norum, K. R., Schrumpf, A., and Skaug, O. E. (1966). “Serum vitamin B12 and chlorpromazine.” Lancet, i, 316–317.Google Scholar
Ferraro, A., Arieti, S., and English, W. H. (1945). “Cerebral changes in the course of pernicious anaemia, and their relationship to psychic symptoms.” J. Neuropath, and exp. Neurol., 4, 217–239.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fraser, T. N. (1960). “Cerebral manifestations of Addisonian pernicious anaemia.” Lancet, ii, 458–459.Google Scholar
Forshaw, J., and Harwood, L. (1966). “Serum vitamin B12 and chlorpromazine.” Ibid., i, 602.Google Scholar
Harris, G. E. C. (1958). “Snares and delusions in the recognition of pernicious anaemia.” Connecticut State med. J., 22, 543–545.Google Scholar
Herbert, V., Gottlieb, C. W., and Altschulb, M. D. (1965). “Apparent low serum vitamin B12 levels associated with chlorpromazine.” Lancet, i, 549.Google Scholar
Hunter, R., and Matthews, D. M. (1965). “Mental symptoms in vitamin B12 deficiency.” Ibid., ii, 738.Google Scholar
Lurib, L. A. (1919). “Pernicious anaemia with mental symptoms.” Arch. Neurol. and Psychiat., ii, 67–109.Google Scholar
Samson, D. C., Swisher, S. N., Christian, R. N., and Engel, G. L. (1952). “Cerebral metabolic disturbance and delusions in pernicious anaemia: clinical and electroencephalographic studies.” Arch. intern. Med., 90, 4–14.Google Scholar
Scheinberg, P. (1951). “Cerebral blood flow and metabolism in pernicious anaemia.” Blood, 6, 213–227.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shulman, R. (1967). “A survey of vitamin B12 deficiency in an elderly psychiatric population.” Brit. J. Psychiat., 113, 241–251.Google Scholar
Smith, A. D. M. (1960). “Megaloblastic madness.” Brit. med. J., 2, 1840–1845.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Strachan, R. W., and Henderson, J. G. (1965). “Psychiatric syndromes due to avitaminosis B12 with normal blood and marrow.” Quart. J. Med., 34, 303–317.Google Scholar
Victor, M., and Lear, A. A. (1956). “Subacute combined degeneration of spinal cord.” Amer. J. Med., 20, 896–911.Google Scholar
Walton, J. N., Kiloh, L. G., Osselton, J. W., and Farrall, J. (1954). “The electroencephalogram in pernicious anaemia and subacute combined degeneration of the cord.” Electroenceph. clin. Neurophysiol., 6, 45–64.Google Scholar
Wilkinson, J. F. (1932). “Gastric secretion in pernicious anaemia.” Quart. J. Med., 1, 361–386.Google Scholar
Wintrobe, M. S. (1961). Clinical Haematology. London: Henry Kimpton.Google Scholar
Woltman, H. W. (1918). “Brain changes associated with pernicious anaemia.” Arch, intern. Med., 21, 791–843.Google Scholar
Submit a response

eLetters

No eLetters have been published for this article.