Vitamin B12 levels in pregnancy influence erythropoietin response to anemia

Objective: to discover whether vitamin B₁₂ levels influence erythropoietin (EPO) response during pregnancy. Study design: 117 pregnant women after the 27th week were divided into three groups according to log vitamin B₁₂ concentrations. EPO (by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay), Hemoglobin (Hb) and medium corpuscular Hb concentration (MCHC) were measured in these patients. The tests used were: calculation of simple statistic, regression coefficient and t-independent test with level of significance. An exclusive partitioned cluster method (K-means procedure) was used. Results: For the lowest vitamin B₁₂ levels there is an unexpected lack of difference in plasma EPO levels between anemic and nonanemic patients. In fact EPO levels were high even in nonanemic women. The only parameter of the blood count that seems to change in relation to vitamin B₁₂ concentration is the MCHC. Conclusions: These results suggest that low vitamin B₁₂ levels inhibit the suppression of EPO response in nonanemic pregnant women probably through MCHC modifications. Copyright (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ireland Ltd.