Assessment of Vitamin B12 Deficiency Caused by Metformin in Type II Diabetic Patients

Metformin use over time reduces vitamin B12 levels, according to several studies, and its clinical manifestation can be mistaken as diabetic peripheral neuropathy. In order to investigate vitamin-B12 deficiency in type II diabetic patients with long-term metformin treatment, a link between vitamin B12 and peripheral neuropathy, and to evaluate the quality of life in (T2DM) patients, the current study was done. At Sree Balaji Medical College and Hospital's outpatient and inpatient departments, a prospective observational case-control research was done. The study included 35 healthy volunteers (controls) and 35 Type 2 diabetes patients who had been on metformin for more than six months (cases). Patients' venous blood samples were collected in K2 EDTA vacutainers and centrifuged at 1500 rpm for 10 minutes, settled plasma was transferred into cryo-vials, and parameters such as Vitamin-B12, HbA1c, and CBP were estimated and this is used to conduct the statistical analysis. The prevalence of blood vitamin B12 deficiency and borderline deficiency in T2DM patients is 20.5 percent, while the mean HbA1C values in our study T2DM subjects are 9.07 percent, indicating either poor diabetes control or poor metformin drug compliance. Vitamin B12 insufficiency was found in 83 percent of T2DM patients who had been using metformin for 1 to 10 years. The reliability test was used to assess their quality of life, and the results revealed that the study participants' quality of life was poor.