Low Vitamin B12: A Hidden Cause of Diabetes Explosion in India?

Ask any pregnant woman and she will vouch for the Group B vitamin known as folic acid. Chances are that her doctor has explained to her how this is a proven cornerstone of good pregnancy nutrition.

But a new finding by a Pune-based diabetologist reveals that babies born to mothers with high folate levels and low vitamin B12 levels are more insulin resistant. Insulin resistance is the body’s inability to use the insulin it produces. It may be linked to obesity, hypertension and high levels of fat in the blood.

Result: A considerable contribution to the epidemic of adiposity and Type 2 diabetes in India, concludes Dr CS Yajnik, diabetologist and head of Pune KEM hospital’s diabetes unit, in a paper published in Diabetologia this January.

“We studied the association between the vitamin B12, folate and total homocysteine status during pregnancy and offspring adiposity and insulin resistance,” says Yagnik. What they found was that it led to low birthweight babies - a risk factor for Type 2 diabetes.

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