Absorption of vitamin B12 in nutritional megaloblastic anaemia

1) The vitamin B12 deficiency found in some patients with nutritional megaloblastic anaemia seen in Malaya did not appear to be directly related to a malabsorption of the vitamin. 2) This, and other evidence, suggested that tropical sprue was unlikely to have been a major cause for this deficiency. It was also noted that pernicious anaemia was not encountered. Malabsorption, when it did occur, might have been related to changes in the intestinal bacterial flora and/or inflammatory changes in the intestinal mucosa, for the malabsorption was readily corrected by aureomycin and sometimes by prednisolone.