Comparison of serum vitamin b12 concentrations between TYPE 2 diabetes mellitus patients treated with metformin for long term and the control group

Diabetes mellitus is one of the most common metabolic diseases and important health problems with progressive incidence. Therefore, it is important to prevent the deaths and all other health concequences and complications in diabetic patients and help them improve their quality of life. This specifies the important role of metformin in the treatment of diabetes. Metformin stays as a first preferred treatment for type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) in most societies to provide strategies to prevent, treat and reduce the complications of this disease. The aim of our study was to evaluate the level of vitamin B12 in diabetic patients who take metformin and non-diabetic subjects who do not take metformin(control group) and the relationship between metformin and serum vitamin B12 levels. Participants were excluded from the study if they had a history some specific disease or if they used some specific medications that may have effect on vitamin B12 concenration. Vitamin B12 levels in diabetic patients who use metformin as their treatment were compared with those in non-diabetic patients. No significant difference was found in vitamin B12 level in diabetic patients and non-diabetic subjects (p=0.970). As a conclusion in this study did not find any evidence that shows that there might be relationship between metformin intake and vitamin B12. Also in this study other factors like gender and age (in both groups), duration of metformin intake and the amount metformin dosage (in diabetic groups), have not had any significant effect on vitamin B12 level.