13 Aug B Vitamins Delay Dementia: Study
With the aging of the country’s population, dementia has gained attention as a growing epidemic. The World Health Organization predicts that between 2010 and 2050 the number of dementia cases will increase from 26 million to 115 million worldwide. Prevalence increases significantly with age, and it is estimated that more than 40% of the population aged 85 and older has AD.
Current FDA-approved treatments for AD have a moderate impact on this illness at best. Researchers continue trying to develop disease-modifying therapies that could impact the overall disease process or even provide a cure. To date, this work has not yielded any safe and effective commercially available products.
Recent research however has suggested certain vitamin supplements may delay the onset of or decline from dementia. It has long been known that vitamin B deficiencies (eg, B12 and thiamine deficiency) can present with symptoms of cognitive impairment that may be reversed by replacing these vitamins.
David Smith at the University of Oxford and his colleagues have discovered that, in some patients experiencing mild cognitive impairment (MCI), a cocktail of high-dose B vitamins could prevent gray matter loss associated with progression to AD. Smith and his team found a positive correlation between high homocysteine (tHcy) levels and risk of cognitive impairment and AD. The researchers studied 156 subjects over 70 in Oxford, England who suffered from MCI. The subjects received either a placebo or a high-dose B vitamin cocktail consisting of 20 milligrams of vitamin B6, 0.5 milligrams of vitamin B12 and 0.8 milligrams of folic acid.
The study appears in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and a good article of the findings and it’s implications can be read here:
The pathophysiology of dementia reveals inflammatory processes and oxidative damage in the brains of demented individuals, leading researchers to speculate that anti-inflammatory and antioxidant treatments may be effective for preventing or treating such damage. Other studies have also concluded association o vitamins E, C, and D with cognitive impairment.