Of course, plant-based eating is just one of many ways to become deficient in vitamin B12. Even nitrous oxide (laughing gas) can do it in as little as two days, thanks to the recreational use of whipped cream canister gas. (I just learned about “whippits”!)
When researchers gave vegetarians and vegans as little as 50 daily micrograms of cyanocobalamin, which is the recommended and most stable form of vitamin B12 supplement, their homocysteine levels, which had started up in the elevated zone, normalized right down into the safe zone under 10 mmol/L within only one to two months. Just 2,000 micrograms of cyanocobalamin once a week gave the same beautiful result, as you can see in the graph below and at 1:15 in my
If you’re plant-based and have been taking your B12, but your homocysteine level is still too high (above 10 mmol/L), is there anything else you can do? Well, inadequate folate intake can also increase homocysteine, but folate comes from the same root as foliage. It’s found in beans and leaves, concentrated in greens. If you’re eating beans and greens, taking your B12, and your homocysteine level is still too high, I’d suggest taking 1 gram of creatine a day as an experiment, then getting your homocysteine levels retested in a month to see if it helped.
Creatine is a compound formed naturally in the human body that is primarily involved with energy production in our muscles and brain. It’s also formed naturally in the bodies of many other animals. So, when we eat their muscles, we can also take in some of the creatine in their bodies through our diet. We only need about 2 grams of creatine a day, so those who eat meat may get about 1 gram from their diet and their body makes the rest from scratch. There are rare birth defects where you’re born without the ability to make it, in which case, you have to get it from your diet. Otherwise, our bodies can make as much as we need to maintain normal concentrations in our muscles.
As you can see in the graph below and at 2:54 in my video, when you cut out meat, the amount of creatine floating around in your bloodstream goes down.
