Low B12 / Folate / Ferritin and Anxiety

[millymonkins]

Hi. Has anyone with had any success improving anxiety and low mood by increasing B12 / folate and Ferritin levels? My 18 year old daughter suffers from anxiety and low mood and recently had blood tests with the following results: B12 - 235 pmol / Folate - 7.3 mol / Ferritin 38 ug/l all of which I believe are on the lower end of the accepted range. Thanks

Hi @millymonkins, who carried out the test and are they going to prescribe supplements for her? I've seen a benefit from supplementing and also improving my diet, it's definitely worth following up.

Thank you. They were private tests through Thriva and they have recommended supplementation but I just wanted to understand more about the correlation with anxiety and low mood.

There is a book you might find helpful called 'the anti-anxiety food solution' by Trudy Scott. She goes into detail about the different vitamins and minerals and the impact they have on mental health. There is also 'eat to beat depression and anxiety' by Drew Ramsey, he has an Instagram account too which is quite good.

I do personally notice a difference when I take supplements too.

Thank you @rainbowninja I will take a look at both of those. Unfortunately my daughter has for a while had a fairly poor teenage / student diet!

Low B12 has made me very unwell mentally in the past. Suggest asking GP to prescribe as the tablets are much stronger and will work much quicker.

I get folic acid, ferrous fumarate (iron) and b12 injections from the gp on the nhs. Fat her to her GP and try and get that too. They will try b12 tablets first before injections (cyancobalamin I think is the name of b12).

Made a big difference to me.

Get her to her GP.

@millymonkins I think it's great that you had the test done, now you've got the information you need to get her on the road to feeling better x