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Folate and Vitamin B 12 Levels in an Urban Elderly Population With Chronic Diseases
Author(s) -
Grinblat Joseph,
Marcus David L.,
Hernandez Francisco,
Freedman Michael L.
Publication year - 1986
Publication title -
journal of the american geriatrics society
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.992
H-Index - 232
eISSN - 1532-5415
pISSN - 0002-8614
DOI - 10.1111/j.1532-5415.1986.tb04902.x
Subject(s) - medicine , gerontology , chronic disease , population , environmental health , family medicine
Folate levels of serum and red blood cells (RBC) and vitamin B 12 serum levels were investigated in 326 urban chronically ill elderly ambulatory patients and 41 healthy young control subjects. Two laboratory methods were used for investigating the folate levels, the microbiologic assay (MBA) with Lactobacillus casei and radioassay (RA). Serum and RBC samples of 326 patients were tested by the folate MBA and 270 of the same samples by the RIA methods. In the MBA 6.8% of the patients and 12.2% of controls had low levels of folate RBC (less than 200 nglmL) and 1.8% of patients and 4.8% of controls had low serum folate levels (less than 5 ng/mL). All of the patients with the low folate levels had normal hematologic findings and no clinical symptoms of folate deficiency. In the RIA method, all of the patients and almost all of the control subjects (except one) had normal folate levels. Ten of the patients (3%) had low levels of serum vitamin (less than 200 pg/mL). They were hematologically normal. They had normal Schilling tests and normal vitamin B 12 dietary intake. Their RBC folate levels were normal and even somewhat higher. Forty percent of these patients had macular degeneration of the eyes. The data indicate the superiority of the RA method over the MBA and bring into question the accuracy of previous studies. The data furnish further evidence that a low vitamin B 12 level in the elderly is not necessarily a true vitamin B 12 deficiency and raise the possibility of an association between low B 12 serum levels and macular degeneration of the eyes.