Sublingual Vs. B12 Injection

Vitamin B12 is a water soluble vitamin that plays a vital role in body metabolism and central nervous system communication. Individuals deficient in this vitamin display many problems associated with normal metabolic and nervous system functions. Supplementation is an effective treatment for people that are deficient in vitamin B12. The current sublingual, oral, and injectable versions of vitamin B12 all show positive affects in treating individuals afflicted with symptoms of vitamin deficiency.

Requirements of Treatments

• The treatment must be able to supply a form of the vitamin that is able to be efficiently absorbed in the blood stream to be distributed throughout the body. The body requires approximately 2 micrograms of B12 per day.

Oral Supplementation

• A study conducted by Bolaman et al. found that oral administration of vitamin B12 was just as effective as intramuscular injection for relieving the symptoms of anemia due to the vitamin deficiency; although the bioavailabilty of oral B12 is much less than the intramuscular version.

Intramuscular Supplementation

• Vitamin B12 injections are often very expensive and painful in some circumstances. The alternative oral and sublingual versions are a much more reasonable and equally effective means of treatment.

Sublingual Administration

• Newly developed sublingual versions may prove to be the best treatment for the vitamin deficiency. It is a much more reasonably priced than intramuscular injections and bypasses the absorption issue with oral administration because the vitamin is absorbed directly into the blood stream.

Individual Choice

• Intramuscular injection, oral and sublingual administration are all three effective vitamin B12 delivery methods in relieving symptoms associated with vitamin deficiency. The choice of treatment can therefore be based mainly on the convenience of the treatment method for each individual.