Vitamin B12, like other B vitamins, was discovered as a result of a disease, A fatal type of anaemia due to a dysfunction of the digestive system was first described in the 19th century. The disease took a heavy toll on people’s lives. George Minot and William Murphy discovered that this fatal anaemia could be cured by ingesting large amounts of animal liver. In 1948, an active substance was isolated in the liver, and it was only 16 years later that Dorothy Hodgkin succeeded in isolating Vitamin B12. During the work on Vitamin B12, a Nobel Prize was awarded to the said team: Minot, Murphy and Whipple in 1934 for the effective treatment of anaemia by means of liver. Dorothy Hodgkin was also awarded the 1964 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/medicine/1934/minot/biographical/

The first basic symptom of Vitamin B12 deficiency may be an abnormal red blood cell formation system. But not only that; nowadays, Vitamin B12 is very often credited with a strong ‘power’ over the nervous system, which makes our bodies work properly at the level of psychological functions.

Vitamin B12 is the only vitamin, which, in its structure, contains the mineral, cobalt, to which it owes its name, Cobalamin. Given its cobalt colour, Vitamin B12 is often referred to as the ‘red vitamin’.

The main forms of Cobalamin are:

• Hydroxocobalamin,
• Cyanocobalamin,
• Methylcobalamin (active coenzymated form)
• Adenosylcobalamin (active coenzymated form).

Important sources of Vitamin B12 in the diet are animal foods including meat, dairy products, eggs, as well as fish and shellfish. Therefore, it is common for vegans and vegetarians to ensure the intake of Vitamin B12 from alternative sources. For proper absorption of Vitamin B12, the Castle factor working properly plays a crucial role. In healthy subjects, Vitamin B12 bioavailability from fish, sheepmeat and poultry meat was 42%, 56%-89%, and 61%-66%, respectively. Compared to meat, absorption from eggs is estimated to be less than 9%. Similarly, bioavailability from algae is negligible.