B12 foods, Listing

[Joseph Arabasz MD]

Dear Topica,

                            Here are listings of B12 food Content

Best wishes always

Appreciate your assistance with this matter

Cordially,

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http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=nutrient&dbid=107

World's Healthiest Foods ranked as quality sources of vitamin B12
Food	Serving Size	Cals	Amount (mcg)	DRI/DV (%)	Nutrient Density	World's Healthiest Foods Rating
Sardines	3.20 oz	188.7	8.11	338	32.2	excellent
Salmon	4 oz	157.6	5.67	236	27.0	excellent
Tuna	4 oz	147.4	2.66	111	13.5	excellent
Cod	4 oz	96.4	2.62	109	20.4	excellent
Lamb	4 oz	310.4	2.51	105	6.1	excellent
Scallops	4 oz	125.9	2.44	102	14.5	excellent
Shrimp	4 oz	134.9	1.88	78	10.4	excellent
Beef	4 oz	175.0	1.44	60	6.2	very good
Yogurt	1 cup	149.4	0.91	38	4.6	very good
Cow's milk	4 oz	74.4	0.55	23	5.5	very good
Eggs	1 each	77.5	0.55	23	5.3	very good
Turkey	4 oz	166.7	0.42	18	1.9	good
Chicken	4 oz	187.1	0.39	16	1.6	good
Cheese	1 oz	114.2	0.24	10	1.6	good
Mushrooms, Crimini	1 cup	15.8	0.07	3	3.3	good

World's Healthiest Foods Rating	Rule
excellent	DRI/DV>=75% OR Density>=7.6 AND DRI/DV>=10%
very good	DRI/DV>=50% OR Density>=3.4 AND DRI/DV>=5%
good	DRI/DV>=25% OR Density>=1.5 AND DRI/DV>=2.5%

Risk of Dietary Toxicity

There is no known toxicity risk from dietary vitamin B12. In fact, doctors routinely inject people with deficiency symptoms with very large doses of the vitamin—500 times the daily required intake or more—without evidence of toxicity. You can be confident that your diet does not contain too much vitamin B12 

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Public Health Recommendations

In 1998, the National Academy of Sciences established a set of Dietary Reference Intakes (DRI) that included Recommended Dietary Allowances (RDA) by age for vitamin B12. These are summarized in the chart below. Values for infants under one year old were established in the form of Adequate Intake (AI) levels. The full set of DRI recommendations is listed below:

• 0-6 months: 0.4 mcg
• 6-12 months: 0.5 mcg
• 1-3 years: 0.9 mcg
• 4-8 years: 1.2 mcg
• 9-13 years: 1.8 mcg
• 14+ years: 2.4 mcg
• Pregnant women: 2.6 mcg
• Lactating women: 2.8 mcg

Note that the National Academy of Sciences has advised people over the age of 50 to meet their intake requirements mainly via either fortified foods or using a vitamin B12 supplement. This recommendation is due to the high number of people in this age group with malabsorption of the vitamin.

There is no established Tolerable Upper Intake Level (UL) for vitamin B12. In fact, doctors rather routinely supplement or inject people with pernicious anemia with amounts of vitamin B12 that are several hundred-fold greater than the DRI recommendations. As such, there is no known reason to be concerned about excessive intake of vitamin B12.

The Daily Value (DV) of 6 mcg per day is the value you'll see on food labels. Please note that the more recent DRI values are much lower, and probably a better reflection of your daily needs. We chose the adult DRI (ages 14 and older) of 2.4 micrograms as our daily recommended amount at WHFoods.

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Selected Food Sources of Vitamin B12

Food	Micrograms (mcg) per serving	Percent DV*
Clams, cooked, 3 ounces	84.1	1,402
Liver, beef, cooked, 3 ounces	70.7	1,178
Breakfast cereals, fortified with 100% of the DV for vitamin B12, 1 serving	6.0	100
Trout, rainbow, wild, cooked, 3 ounces	5.4	90
Salmon, sockeye, cooked, 3 ounces	4.8	80
Trout, rainbow, farmed, cooked, 3 ounces	3.5	58
Tuna fish, light, canned in water, 3 ounces	2.5	42
Cheeseburger, double patty and bun, 1 sandwich	2.1	35
Haddock, cooked, 3 ounces	1.8	30
Breakfast cereals, fortified with 25% of the DV for vitamin B12, 1 serving	1.5	25
Beef, top sirloin, broiled, 3 ounces	1.4	23
Milk, low-fat, 1 cup	1.2	18
Yogurt, fruit, low-fat, 8 ounces	1.1	18
Cheese, Swiss, 1 ounce	0.9	15
Beef taco, 1 soft taco	0.9	15
Ham, cured, roasted, 3 ounces	0.6	10
Egg, whole, hard boiled, 1 large	0.6	10
Chicken, breast meat, roasted, 3 ounces	0.3	5

*DV = Daily Value. DVs were developed by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to help consumers determine the level of various nutrients in a standard serving of food in relation to their approximate requirement for it. The DV for vitamin B12 is 6.0 mcg. However, the FDA does not require food labels to list vitamin B12 content unless a food has been fortified with this nutrient. Foods providing 20% or more of the DV are considered to be high sources of a nutrient, but foods providing lower percentages of the DV also contribute to a healthful diet. The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA’s) Nutrient Database Web site [13]) lists the nutrient content of many foods and provides a comprehensive list of foods containing vitamin B12 arranged by nutrient content and by food name.

Dietary supplements

In dietary supplements, vitamin B12 is usually present as cyanocobalamin [5], a form that the body readily converts to the active forms methylcobalamin and 5-deoxyadenosylcobalamin. Dietary supplements can also contain methylcobalamin and other forms of vitamin B12.

Existing evidence does not suggest any differences among forms with respect to absorption or bioavailability. However the body’s ability to absorb vitamin B12 from dietary supplements is largely limited by the capacity of intrinsic factor. For example, only about 10 mcg of a 500 mcg oral supplement is actually absorbed in healthy people [8].

In addition to oral dietary supplements, vitamin B12 is available in sublingual preparations as tablets or lozenges. These preparations are frequently marketed as having superior bioavailability, although evidence suggests no difference in efficacy between oral and sublingual forms [16,17].

Prescription medications

Vitamin B12, in the form of cyanocobalamin and occasionally hydroxocobalamin, can be administered parenterally as a prescription medication, usually by intramuscular injection [12]. Parenteral administration is typically used to treat vitamin B12 deficiency caused by pernicious anemia and other conditions that result in vitamin B12 malabsorption and severe vitamin B12 deficiency [12].

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The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA’s) Nutrient Database Web site) lists the nutrient content of many foods and provides a comprehensive list of foods containing vitamin B12 arranged by nutrient content and by food name.

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