Cobalamin deficiency in elderly patients

Emmanuel Andrès and colleagues¹ state that the classic treatment for deficiency of vitamin B₁₂ is injections of crystalline vitamin B₁₂ and that an oral treatment has “recently” been devised. However, oral treatment of pernicious anemia was described in 1926 by George Minot and William Murphy.² Indeed, in 1934, they (along with George Whipple) received the Nobel Prize for this work. Not until 1948 did Karl Folkers and his coworkers at Merck succeed in purifying crystalline vitamin B₁₂.³

S. Peter Wetterberg Consultant Geriatrician Medi 3 [private hospital] Aalesund, Norway