Vitiligo is a skin disease that often occurs with vitamin B12 deficiency– Find out if taking B12 supplements can treat your vitiligo symptoms and get rid of white patches on your skin forever.
What is vitiligo?
Vitiligo is a skin disorder that causes you to lose brown pigmentation, resulting in white patches on your skin. Hair growing in white skin spots caused by vitiligo may turn white, as well. About 1% of all people in the world have vitiligo, including roughly two million US citizens. Although vitiligo affects people of all races, it is more noticeable in darker skinned ethnic groups.
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What causes vitiligo?
Doctors are uncertain what exactly causes the skin disorder vitiligo, but they believe it might be an autoimmune disorder. Also, they have noticed strong correlations with certain chronic conditions. People who suffer vitiligo usually fall into one of four groups:
- Hyperthyroid (overactive thyroid gland) patients
- Pernicious anemia (vitamin B12 deficiency) patients
- Addison’s disease (underactive adrenal gland) patients
- Alopecia areata patients (people with patches of baldness)
What are the symptoms of vitiligo?
Vitiligo causes telltale patches of white skin (depigmentation), typically on parts of your body that get the most sun exposure, like your hands, feet, and face, particularly around the eyes, mouth, and lips.
Vitiligo can also occur on covered-up parts of your body, like your stomach, hips, and armpits, though that is not as common.
Other symptoms of vitiligo may include premature hair greying, including grey eyelash hair. White patches can also occur in the inside of the mouth.
For some, vitiligo symptoms remain only in one area of the body. For others, patches of white skin may slowly spread over years to other parts of the body.
How will taking vitamin B12 supplements affect my vitiligo symptoms?
In one clinical study, vitamin B12 and folic acid were administered to patients who suffered from vitiligo. They were also instructed to keep records of sun exposure.
- More than half of the 100 vitiligo patients noticed dramatic results- 37 of which had opted for sun exposure.
- Six volunteers who took the vitamin B12 and folic acid supplements experienced noticeably superior results.
Scientists confirmed that supplementing with vitamin B12 and folic acid, combined with sun exposure, is more beneficial for vitiligo patients than simple sun exposure alone.
Read more about B12 deficiency:
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Sources:
Vitiligo Treatment, Symptoms, Causes, Diagnosis and Signs on MedicineNet.com
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