What assessment measure provides a more functional indicator of Vitamin B12 deficiency than standard serum levels?
Answer
Serum methylmalonic acid concentration.
Determining accurate nutrient status can be challenging, as simple blood tests sometimes do not reflect the actual functional deficiency within tissues. For Vitamin B12, assessing its status through simple serum levels can be misleading. A more functional and reliable indicator of true deficiency is the measurement of serum methylmalonic acid concentration. When the body lacks sufficient usable Vitamin B12, this specific acid begins to accumulate in the serum at predictable levels, offering a clearer signal that metabolic processes requiring B12 are impaired, even if the circulating vitamin concentration appears borderline normal.
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