Vitamin B12 in Early Human Immunodeficiency Virus-1 Infection

To the Editor.— We read with great interest the article by Harriman and colleagues 1 entitled "Vitamin B 12 Malabsorption in Patients With Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome" that appeared in the September issue of theArchives. We are currently conducting a similar investigation on the incidence and prevalence of malnutrition in a human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1)-positive cohort of homosexual men. Our study is part of a comprehensive evaluation of psychosocial and biological cofactors associated with the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) and its progression. Subjects are homosexual men, aged 20 to 50 years, asymptomatic of other than persistent generalized lymphadenopathy (Centers for Disease Control stages II and III), and confirmed to be HIV-1 seropositive by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay and Western blot. Initial evaluation of 84 subjects reveals that while there were no differences between the mean cyanocobalamin levels among the groups, a significant proportion of the HIV-positive subjects demonstrated low