Vitamin B12 Deficiency and Multiple Sclerosis; Is there Any Association?

Background: vitamin b12 (cobalamin) deficiency can result insome clinical and paraclinical characteristics similar to what is seenin multiple sclerosis (ms) patients. this study aimed to evaluate thecontroversial association between vitamin b12 deficiency and ms.methods: we measured serum vitamin b12 in 60 patients withms and 38 healthy controls. clinical disability was evaluatedaccording to the extended disability status scale (edss). serumb12 concentration was measured with radioimmunoassay dualisotope method. the cutoff value for low serum vitamin b12concentrations was 75 pg/ml. patients were in remission at thetime of blood draw.results: there were 13 (21.6%) ms patients and 10 (26.3%)controls with low serum b12 concentration with no significantdifference between the groups; p > 0.05. the mean serum vitaminb12 concentration in ms patients (108.9±45.3 pg/ml) was notsignificantly different compared with controls (98.9±44.4 pg/ml); p=0.284. likewise, there was no correlation between theconcentration of serum vitamin b12 and disease’ age of onset,duration, subtypes, or disability status.conclusions: in contrast to some previous reports, our findingsdid not support any association between b12 deficiency and ms.