Treatment
Patients experiencing an insufficiency in their intrinsic factor levels cannot benefit from a low dose oral vitamin B12 supplement, because it will not absorb through the wall of the small intestine. Historically, the disease was thought untreatable before the discovery that it could be managed with regular injections of vitamin B12, thus bypassing the digestive tract. More recently, Swedish researchers discovered that sufficiently large doses of B12 can also be absorbed sublingually, removing the necessity for injectable B12. However, as of yet, no standards have been set for treatment by the sublingual route and injections of B12 are the only reliable method of treatment.
Read more about this topic: Intrinsic Factor
Famous quotes containing the word treatment:
“Narcissist: psychoanalytic term for the person who loves himself more than his analyst; considered to be the manifestation of a dire mental disease whose successful treatment depends on the patient learning to love the analyst more and himself less.”
—Thomas Szasz (b. 1920)
“To me, nothing can be more important than giving children books, It’s better to be giving books to children than drug treatment to them when they’re 15 years old. Did it ever occur to anyone that if you put nice libraries in public schools you wouldn’t have to put them in prisons?”
—Fran Lebowitz (20th century)
“[17th-century] Puritans were the first modern parents. Like many of us, they looked on their treatment of children as a test of their own self-control. Their goal was not to simply to ensure the child’s duty to the family, but to help him or her make personal, individual commitments. They were the first authors to state that children must obey God rather than parents, in case of a clear conflict.”
—C. John Sommerville (20th century)