I felt sick but couldn’t tell if it was caused by huel. After two days I encountered some diarrhea. First I thought, get used to it but now itching of the in ear and throat added to the symptoms… unfortunately thats the end of my huel journey 
would have been to nice!
Yeah, I also would plead for: please stop using Cyanocobalamin. For following reason: It doesn´t occur naturally in this form and the body can´t take any advantage of it. Therefore, paradoxically, Cyanocobalamin can and will cause a lack in (natural) B12. Since some bodys have large ressources of B12, the lack can occur after years. So the problem isn´t that obvious. Cyanocobalamin enters the body, the body mistakes it for real B12, but then it can´t use it. Indeed I got B12 lack diagnosed by the doctor for the first time of my life after 4 weeks of Huel. I know, everybody uses Cyanocobalamin, because it´s cheaper and the word has not spread yet about the disadvantages. But I am asking you, please do your research, take the effort to look a little deeper into that issue and fix it. I am saying that, because I like Huel very much apart from that. At the moment I am trying not to use it too much and I take B12 patches additionally. But for the long run, of course, it would be really cool, if you guys could fix the problem. Thanks a lot and keep up the good work, Marcella
Hi there, thanks for the post and welcome to the forum. We don’t agree that cyanocobalamin is inferior because it is synthetic. Although this form is artificial, other forms are either not as well absorbed by the body or are not stable in food products over shelf-life, so nutritionally cyanocobalamin is the superior form of B12. See this post from James who devised the Huel formula.
Not the case, we use it because, amongst other reasons, we cannot use any other form that has the same performance.
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Oh, we have done a lot of research on this and our conclusion is cyanocobalamin is the superior form.
There are studies that indicate that methylcobalamin is better absorbed than cyanocobalamin; however, methylcobalamin is not stable in food products over shelf-life and it’s also not permitted for use in food fortification in the EU because of its stability (it’s only permitted for use in supplements). Also, whilst methylcobalamin is more bioactive once it’s been absorbed, cyanocobalamin is absorbed by the body more readily.
Therefore cyanocobalamin is the most suitable choice. In addition we have added an amount of B12 that’s higher than the Nutrient Reference Value (NRV).
I love the title of this thread. I assume someone changed it as it is the sort of thing I would do…as I loved Chumbawamba years before they did the Tubthumping single. I even slept with one of their singers…in a purely platonic way. Can’t believe I never saw it before.
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I don’t see any chumbawumba reference @hunzas
You must still have that night with Neil on your mind
Lucky it does still say cyanocobalamine… someone was asking about this only a half hour ago and they wouldn’t be able to find it if it was labelled after your one time lover
You’ve misinterpreted the study. This study related to a minority of the population who who have the MTHFR mutation as they struggle to methylate forms to the active methycobalamin. (Image to explain this is below). This applies to both cyanobalamin and hydroxycobalamin.
Adenosylcobalamin is used to produce a different co-enzyme to methylcobalamin, the two are not like-for-like. I know this is not a peer-review, but it’s a nice overview: https://veganhealth.org/methylcobalamin-and-adenosylcobalamin/
Studies have shown that adenosylcobalamin and hydroxycobalamin are not equal to methylcobalamin and cyanocobalamin in terms of increasing plasma cobalamin levels. E.g. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29038891, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/5560708
This is before you consider stability, hydroxycobalamin is not very stable as an added vitamin. This is why it is more often used for injections not oral intake.
Methylcobalamin is not permitted for use in food in the EU so that’s the end of that.
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I was actually looking for this thread to reference to the guy having a rash when consuming Huel when I saw the title and then I got distracted; I guess someone re-edited the title, or the drugs I took last night had more of an effect than I expected and I imagined it. Damn B12 supplements containing hallucinogens.
I did actually spend the night sleeping with one of Chumbawamba (true story). We slept in the same room but not in the same bed, which makes the anecdote a bit more boring.
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Hello. I’m new here, but was if anyone elses blood test has shown a correlation between HUEL consumption and elevated B12 levels?
I’ve used Thriva blood tests since 2019. And have always had B12 levels within normal range, until around 3 years ago, when I started drinking HUEL 5 days per week. After the first year my report came back from Thriva saying that my B12 level was high, and recommended that I stop supplementing. But as I knew my levels have always within range, and therefore wasn’t supplementing..
Thriva Doctor says:
B12 was comfortably within range for several years (93-118 pmol/L between 2019 and 2023). It then jumped to 150 pmol/L (at the upper limit of normal) in January 2025, and then to 272 pmol/L - above the analyser’s detection limit - by September 2025. That’s a meaningful and sustained upward shift.
I put it down to a blip, and carried on. But as I don’t supplement, it seems the only thing I regularly consume with B12 as an added ingredient, is HUEL (The standard premixed white bottle)
Is there a medical downside to having constantly elevated B12 levels? Thriva doctors seems to think there is, but haven’t specifically pointed out what.
Google says:
Without supplementation, high vitamin B12 levels (hypercobalaminemia) usually indicate an underlying medical condition. The most common causes include liver disease (damaged liver cells release stored B12), kidney dysfunction (reduced clearance from the blood), or blood disorders that overproduce B12-binding proteins
NHS GP says:
Basically, as the patient is not bleeding and is still breathing, there is nothing to worry about..
I really don’t want to stop using HUEL, as it definitely helps me to reduce my fast food consumption and I like the idea of it being plant based and containing all the vitamins and minerals.
On a different note, I have always supplemented with a Vit D K2 oral spray. As this seems to keep my levels optimal . Although I have stopped over this particularly sunny summer. And will be interesting to see if my levels fall in my next test.
Why did you write “HUEL” and not “Huel”?
Humans are lazy; we wouldn’t press the shift key for uppercase four times when one capital would suffice.
So, are you the bot, or did you just have a bot write this? Perhaps as a script written to look on the internet for opportunities to spread f-u-d and promote a brand… like Thriva!
