Vitamin B12 supplementation during pregnancy and postpartum improves B12 status of both mothers and infants but vaccine response in mothers only: a randomized clinical trial in Bangladesh

What Was Tested

The paper reports a study of Cyanocobalamin (Vitamin B12), published as a randomized controlled trial.

Little is known about effects of B12 supplementation on immune function.

The present study aimed to evaluate effects of pre- and postnatal B12 supplementation on biomarkers of B12 status and vaccine-specific responses in mothers and infants.

Who Took Part

The age groups tagged for this paper are infants, teenagers, young adults and adults, women only.

Women were immunized with pandemic influenza A (H1N1) vaccine at 26- to 28-week gestation.

How the Study Was Run

The design is described as randomized and placebo-controlled.

The participants were allocated by chance, so the Cyanocobalamin (Vitamin B12) group and the comparison group should start out alike.

The comparison arm used a placebo, so changes seen with Cyanocobalamin (Vitamin B12) could be set against what happens without it.

Blood from mothers (baseline, 72-h post-delivery, 3-month postpartum), newborns and infants (3-month) was analyzed for hemoglobin, B12, methylmalonic acid (MMA), total homocysteine (tHcy), ferritin and serum transferrin receptor, C-reactive protein (CRP) and alpha-1-acid glycoprotein (AGP).

Vitamin B12 was also assessed in breast milk.

H1N1-specific antibodies were determined in plasma and colostrum/breast milk.

What Was Measured

PubMed files the paper under topics including Bangladesh, Biomarkers, C-Reactive Protein, Dietary Supplements, Ferritins, Folic Acid and Hemoglobins.

The authors tagged it with the keywords Breast milk B12, Methylmalonic acid, Vaccine response and Vitamin B12 supplementation.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized and placebo-controlled study of Cyanocobalamin (Vitamin B12).

Results are reported in around 5 sentences of the abstract; we leave them to the paper itself rather than summarise them.

The publication is from 2016 (European journal of nutrition), a journal based in Germany.

More context: the Cyanocobalamin (Vitamin B12) compound page, all human trials.