Milk's Vitamin B12 Is Better Absorbed Than Pills
Bioavailability of vitamin B12 in cows' milk
Not medical advice. For informational purposes only. Always consult a healthcare professional. Terms
This study tested if vitamin B12 from milk is easier for the body to use than the kind in supplements.
No biological mechanisms were identified in this study. This may be an epidemiological, observational, or survey-based study that reports associations rather than proposing causal biological pathways.
Systematic Reviews & Meta-Analyses
Max 100Randomized Controlled Trials
Max 90Cohort Studies
Max 72Case-Control Studies
Max 58Cross-Sectional Studies
Max 44Case Reports & Case Series
Max 30Expert Opinion & Narrative Reviews
Max 518 / 90
Evidence Score
Participants are randomly assigned to treatment or control groups, minimizing bias. Considered the gold standard for testing whether an intervention causes an effect.
Not medical advice. For informational purposes only. Always consult a healthcare professional. Terms
This study tested if vitamin B12 from milk is easier for the body to use than the kind in supplements.
No biological mechanisms were identified in this study. This may be an epidemiological, observational, or survey-based study that reports associations rather than proposing causal biological pathways.
Systematic Reviews & Meta-Analyses
Max 100Randomized Controlled Trials
Max 90Cohort Studies
Max 72Case-Control Studies
Max 58Cross-Sectional Studies
Max 44Case Reports & Case Series
Max 30Expert Opinion & Narrative Reviews
Max 518 / 90
Evidence Score
Participants are randomly assigned to treatment or control groups, minimizing bias. Considered the gold standard for testing whether an intervention causes an effect.
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Claims (5)
Pigs absorb way more vitamin B12 from cow's milk than from a lab-made version, and they don’t absorb the lab version at all — their bodies only seem to take in the natural kind.
In pigs, heating or filtering cow's milk doesn't change how well vitamin B12 gets absorbed in the gut — it's the same whether the milk is raw, pasteurized, or microfiltered.
When pigs eat a plant-based meal with synthetic B12 (cyanocobalamin), their bodies don't seem to absorb it — there's no measurable amount showing up in their gut system compared to a meal without it.
Your body needs certain important nutrients like B12, taurine, and omega-3s, and these are mostly or only found in animal foods like meat and fish — you can't really get them from plants.
Giving B12 shots to milk-making cows doesn’t make the milk any better at delivering B12 to pigs’ guts — the pigs absorb about the same amount either way.