New test developed for B-12 deficiency.

• Position: Vitamins - Brief article

A safer, more accurate test for vitamin B-12 deficiency--which affects about 1,000,000 Americans over the age of 65--has been developed by researchers at the University of California, Davis.

An inability to absorb vitamin B-12 properly causes pernicious anemia, leading to fatigue and neurological complications. Yet, physicians lack a safe and simple way to test for poor vitamin B-12 absorption in their patients.

"If you can make the diagnosis, the treatment is easy and the damage can be reversed. But making the diagnosis is tricky," cautions Ralph Green, professor and chair of pathology and laboratory medicine.

The new test involves drinking a small amount of vitamin B-12 labeled with radioactive carbon 14 (14C) and collecting a single drop of blood. The amount of 14C-labeled vitamin B-12...