A prevalência de deficiência de vitamina B12 em indivíduos portadores de diabetes mellitus tipo 2 em uso de metformina no ambulatório de endocrinologia de um referido hospital em Belém/PA

Gisely Mouta de Andrade Paes, Ebenezaide Nascimento Perdigão, Rudival Faial de Moraes Junior.

Abstract

Introduction: In Brazil, about 13 million people are diagnosed with diabetes mellitus (DM). Vitamin B12 deficiency can cause neurological diseases, combined subacute degeneration of the spinal cord, cognitive dysfunction, and hematological diseases. There is a relation between the reduction of vitamin B12 and the use of metformin Objective: to analyze the prevalence of low serum concentrations of vitamin B12 in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus users of metformin, being followed up at the endocrinology clinic. Methods: retrospective cross-sectional study based on data obtained from the medical records of patients seen at the endocrinology clinic between October 2019 and October 2020 with at least one dose of vitamin B12 in the last 10 years of follow-up. Results: A total of 61 medical records were analyzed, 38 (62%) women and 23 (38%) men, with ages ranging from 43 to 86 years. Among the associated comorbidities, 78.69% of the patients were diagnosed with systemic arterial hypertension. In the studied sample, 9.84% of the patients had vitamin B12 deficiency with a serum value less than 200 pg/mL, while 18.03% reported a possible deficiency showing values ​​between 200-300pg/mL and 72.13% showed sufficiency of this vitamin with values ​​above 300pg/mL. Conclusion: There is still a disagreement between the values ​​for the diagnosis of this condition of vitamin B12 deficiency, however approximately 30% of the patients presented values ​​<300pg/mL confirming the importance of the dosage of this vitamin in diabetic patients using metformin.