TY - JOUR A2 - Willcox, Donald Craig AU - Kwak, Chung Shil AU - Lee, Mee Sook AU - Oh, Se In AU - Park, Sang Chul PY - 2010 DA - 2011/03/08 TI - Discovery of Novel Sources of Vitamin B12 in Traditional Korean Foods from Nutritional Surveys of Centenarians SP - 374897 VL - 2010 AB - Human longevity can be explained by a variety of factors, among them, nutritional factor would play an important role. In our study of Korean centenarians for their longevity, the apparent nutritional imbalance in the traditional semi-vegetarian diet raised a special attention, especially on vitamin B12 status, supplied by animal foods. Interestingly, we found that the prevalence of vitamin B12 deficient Korean centenarians was not higher compared with those from Western nations with animal-oriented traditional foods. We assumed that there might be some unveiled sources for vitamin B12 in the Korean traditional foods. Screening of vitamin B12 contents has revealed that some traditional soybean-fermented foods, such as Doenjang and Chunggukjang, and seaweeds contain considerable amounts of vitamin B12. Taken together, it can be summarized that the traditional foods, especially of fermentation, might be evaluated for compensation of the nutritional imbalance in the vegetable-oriented dietary pattern by supplying vitamin B12, resulting in maintenance of health status. SN - 1687-7063 UR - https://doi.org/10.1155/2010/374897 DO - 10.1155/2010/374897 JF - Current Gerontology and Geriatrics Research PB - Hindawi Publishing Corporation KW - ER -