Originally published April 22 2008
Dr. Gabriel Cousens on the Importance of Supplementing With Vitamin B12
by Kevin Gianni
(NaturalNews) This interview is an excerpt from Kevin Gianni's Raw Summit Teleseminar program which can be found at (www.rawsummitarchives.com) . In this excerpt, Dr. Gabriel Cousens shares important information on the importance of B12 regarding how to stop the poisoning of infants.
Raw Summit Excerpt with Dr. Gabriel Cousens, inductee in the National Football Hall of Fame, Founder of the Tree of Life Rejuvenation Center, Patagonia, Arizona and spiritual and medical healer.
Kevin: I do want to talk a little bit about vitamin B12.
Gabriel: Sure... Let's go for it.
Kevin: The vitamin B12 in the raw and vegan community is a big issue. I just read an article in the magazine Living Nutrition that you had contributed to that you've spoken about, so what's the deal?
Gabriel: Well, there is a chapter in Spiritual Nutrition that's extensive. Okay? So, I'm going to answer it but I just want you to know that we really haven't completed answering this.
Kevin: Okay.
Gabriel: And when you're conscious eating, it was absolutely clear that you could get all your B12 from your food. Okay?
Kevin: Okay.
Gabriel: Because through research, I've found human-active B12 and all the C-vegetables and B-power or whatever. But, what I didn't understand was that there were analogs that blocked the uptake of human-active B12. And later, as the research has gotten better, there is a breakdown product which is now the, let's say the gold standard for measuring it and that is what we're using and in some days my mind just went blank on it, but it's alpha-linolenic acid. What we are seeing is that the old standard was 200 nanograms and now it looks like at the blood level of measurement, it should be about 400 nanograms. Now, that's important because it's at around 400 where your homocysteine levels goes to normal. Okay? A homocysteine is a toxin to the nervous system and to the circulatory system. So, you have to have about 400 nanograms or 450 nanograms to go to normal. Now, how do we measure if what we're eating is raising the B12? It's simple. You just do the test. It's a urine test.
Kevin: Um hum.
Gabriel: And we get the answer. If your urine test goes to normal then you're fine. Okay. So far, we haven't yet found any food that will decrease the B12 deficiency. Now, let's go back for a second. There's 18 studies of vegans and live fooders, three on live eaters... in every single study, 18 out of 18 shows that, after about six years, about 80% of vegans or live fooders become B12 deficient.
Kevin: Okay.
Gabriel: Please note that 39% of meat-eaters are B12 deficient. So the rate is
about twice as much.
Kevin: Okay.
Gabriel: So, given that picture, what we're looking at is that, you know there were, that's six years or 10 years, 20% of the test subjects who were not B12 deficient. But at 30 years, they may turn out to be B12 deficient but I don't know if you want to wait to find out.
Kevin: Sure.
Gabriel: Because at that point, it's almost too late. Now, for children, it's very serious and the research suggests that, you know you give B12 to kids, they're fine. They'll be having no problems - vegan kids or live food kids. But, if you don't give B12 to kids then they will get deficient and they may not be able to recover.
Kevin: Wow.
Gabriel: A Study was done with 12 kids that they followed, you know early age on up, who were discovered to be B12 deficient, they payed the price and the sins and then they were put on the supplement and really about three-quarters of them, you know when they reached their teens, were still suffering from some neurological problems.
Kevin: Wow.
Gabriel: Well, you know that's not acceptable. I'm not interested in theory. We're interested in clinical results. As a physician it's like I can't tell mothers not to give their kids B12. That is criminal.
Kevin: Yes.
Gabriel: Even what our data tells us. Given what our data tells us, maybe we will find a combination to have one of our masters students working on that, that will work. But, we don't know that yet. So, we have to be a little conservative about this. So, now there's a guy who, for example, is a vegan who was 30 years above B12 deficiency. He's in his 80s, suddenly he can't stand up. Suddenly he gets tremors. Suddenly, his memory goes away. Suddenly, he becomes incontinent and people say, "This guy is just gone. You know, he's 85." And then they do a test... the B12 test. He's got zero B12. They give him a B12 shot and, you know each day for a week, and suddenly he's back to normal.
Kevin: Really.
Gabriel: That took him 30 years. Well, if you want to wait 30 years, down the hill, and you think, "Well, yes. I didn't get it, therefore I'm the exception and therefore everybody doesn't need to have B12." That's a real miscommunication, if you see what I'm saying.
Kevin: Absolutely.
Gabriel: So, if you're in the 20% then it's fine. It's 6 to 10 years. Don't think that in 20 years you may suddenly, you know be this away and some people go within a year or 2 and, you know they crave meat and there have been two fruitarian communities who have tried it. Johnny Lovewisdom, have you ever heard of him?
Kevin: Um-hum.
Gabriel: Okay. As far as what we can tell is within a year their community started to get bizarre, crazy, sick. He himself became paralyzed. It definitely appeared that we didn't test him but he was B12 deficient among other things.
Kevin: Okay.
Gabriel: There was another community in Australia the last two or three years and they had higher congenital defects to babies. Two or three years, you know most of the community really began to degenerate mentally and physically. So we just, for what we know, it's somewhat very dangerous to stay with theory and make it religion when you have 18 studies that always show the same thing.
Kevin: Yes, and where do you get your B12 from?
Gabriel: So what Gabriel does is we take a Nano B-complex which is a living B12 B-complex made by bacteria.
Kevin: Okay.
Gabriel: A liquid and that is what I recommend to mothers. You know, it's a half a teaspoon twice a day. Done deal. No big deal.
Kevin: Okay.
Gabriel: Living food. It has all the frequencies and it's not synthetic. So, you're getting it from a living food, that's just the concentrate of that.
Kevin: Is this something that you guys make?
Gabriel: No, no. We buy it.
Kevin: Okay.
Gabriel: We sell it at the Tree of Life.
Kevin: Okay. What's the name of it?
Gabriel: It's called Nano B-Complex.
Kevin: Okay. That's exactly what it is. Okay.
Gabriel: Yes. It's great because you got it. It's a living food. It's never been cooked and has the frequency. The difference than synthetics, they don't have the frequencies of the live foods.
Kevin: And can you get it anywhere else? Or do you have to...
Gabriel: Yes, you can. It's made but with premium research and we don't make it as I say, we carry it. We think we'll find a solution but at this point, until we do we have this. We want people to be successful and happy. Now, there's been a variety of people. You know, not right. There's been a few people who really became B12 deficient very quickly and ended up denouncing live foods whether you like without even paying attention to the fact that there was a B12 deficiency. You see what I mean? And that's a big problem so our work is to find all the difficulties. And the main thing is the B12 issue. Obviously, some groups or one group particularly says you get everything from your food. It just doesn't show. They did a research for example in natural hygiene people, 90% of them were B12 deficient.
Kevin: Wow!
Gabriel: Okay, 90%. What does that mean? That means less than 200 and I think 25% of them were less than 100. That's really low! We were saying we need about 400 to 450 to be good.
Kevin: What is the name of the test for B12?
Gabriel: The gold standard test is called the methylmalonic acid test and all they do is test your urine. You take your urine from anywhere. You freeze it and certain laboratories will do it. What it is... it's a metabolite and if you're B12 deficient, methylmalonic acid coenzyme A does not transfer with this succinyl-coA which you need for energy in your system. That's one reason that B12 deficiency leads to lower energy. But the MMA test is the gold standard, methylmalonic acid test. It's really the best test there is. It's much more accurate than the serum B12.
Kevin: You can find that online?
Gabriel: Almost any laboratory, I mean, we'll do it here for people but almost any laboratory can do it.
Kevin: Okay.
Gabriel: And when here, we send it out to a laboratory, you know, local. Here in Patagonia. We have them do it; we requested they set it up and they do it. We're doing it from all over the world but basically people should be able to get it locally. It is a really a wise idea. In the normal, some 400... well, basically it should be normal. If it's not normal, if it's high, it means the methylmalonic acid is not being metabolized correctly and that's because you have the B12 deficiency.
Kevin: Okay. So, I'd say it again, if it's over 400 you're healthy, if it's like 2000?
Gabriel: I said two things that the equivalent of a normal methylmalonic acid test is usually a serum B12 of between 400 and 450.
Kevin: Okay.
Gabriel: Each level has its own standard. It should be left in a certain number and it's going to vary. That's why I'm not giving the number because apparently I don't have the standard.
Kevin: So you'll know on the report that comes back.
Gabriel: Yes, because they have to be less than a certain number. If it's less or if it's above that that certain number range, that means you're deficient in B12.
Kevin: I got you.
Gabriel: Because the B12 is needed to metabolize the methylmalonic coenzyme A to succinyl-coA which you need for energy. You're missing the B12, aid goes to methylmalonyl-CoA and methylmalonic acid which gets excreted in the urine.
Kevin: Got you! So then you can tell. Great!
Gabriel: It's an extremely simple test.
Kevin: Great!
Gabriel: It simply tests your urine and you're going to say, 'okay this food is good for it'. If it raise it or it doesn't. It's really simple. This is not an argument. Either it raises it or it doesn't. We know that vegetables doesn't do it, spraying doesn't do it, little green house just doesn't do it. All year for managed foods doesn't do it. We just know that that's all been tested. Doesn't raise it.
Kevin: Wow!
Gabriel: It's just a straight math. If it raises it, great! Let's find something to raise it. If it doesn't, then let's not tell people they can get B12 from it.
Kevin: This is an incredible insight. I'm glad that we actually got into that because it's an issue. It's definitely an issue.
Gabriel: Well, it's a harmful issue. It's just not an issue. It's not theory. If you don't give your kids B12, initially there have been three cases. There's a community that's a Black African community living in Israel who didn't believe in the B12 and they've been in the literature. Now, we're talking literature, I don't know what else is going on. There are at least three important cases of kids dying of B12 deficiency. Okay? We have no idea of the amount of cases of kids who become neurologically impaired because you need B12 for the development of your neurological system. You see what I mean? And your hematological system. We do know that once you've been deficient for a child, a high percentage of those kids never really go back to normal. Not that there's been extensive studies but they've done enough studies to make a big hint that that's the way it is.
Kevin: It's not worth finding out anymore, really.
Gabriel: Well, not on your own kids. That's what this guy at Australia the fruitarian community, he very ethically said no. I got what's going on. We're stopping this. We've done a social experiment. We've been the guinea pigs. We're stopping. Not good. He had the ethics. Johnny
Lovewisdom didn't quite get to that place. He didn't quite get it but he ended up having dairy in his diet and so forth. So he got a little bit that there's some clue at the end and there are other people going back to dairy and it's like you don't need to go to dairy. Dairy has so many problems which will take us an hour to talk about. But basically, it's so simple. Just take the Nano B Complex. It's a natural thing. It's live food. Done.
To read the rest of this transcript as well as access 14 different raw food experts just like Dr. Gabriel Cousens, please visit (http://www.RawSummitArchives.com) .
About the author
Kevin Gianni is a health advocate, author and speaker. He has helped thousands of people in over 85 countries learn how to take control of their health--and keep it. To view his popular internet TV Show "The Renegade Health Show" (and get a free gift!) with commentary on natural health issues, vegan and raw food diets, holistic nutrition and more click here.
His book, "The Busy Person's Fitness Solution," is a step-by-step guide to optimum health for the time and energy-strapped. To find out more about abundance, optimum health and self motivation click here... or you're interested in the vegan and raw food diet and cutting edge holistic nutrition click here. For access to free interviews, downloads and a complete bodyweight exercise archive visit www.LiveAwesome.com.
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