Vitamin B new tool against Alzheimer’s?
Red Foxes cheerleaders from Ukraine during a time-out in the World Basketball Championship quarterfinal between Turkey and Slove
British research-ers have found that daily dose of Vitamin B tablets can halve the rate of age-related memory loss and can delay the onset of Alzheimer’s disease.
A study by the University of Oxford has revealed the positive effect of daily intake of Vitamin B on Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI), which covers problems with memory, language, or other mental functions in the elderly.
Around one in six elderly people, who are above 70 years of age, suffers from Mild Cognitive Impairment and around half of people with MCI develop dementia, mainly Alzheimer’s, within five years of diagnosis.
Versions of Vitamin B — folic acid, vitamin B6 and vitamin B12 — are known to control levels of the amino acid homocysteine in the blood, and high levels of homocysteine are associated with an increased risk of Alzheimer’s.
The study by Oxford researchers, which was published in the journal PLoS ONE, assessed disease progression by measuring brain atrophy rate among 168 volunteers with mild memory problems. Half of the volunteers were given a combined high dose B vitamin tablets daily for two years and the other half a placebo tablet.
The researchers, using MRI scans to measure rate of brain shrinkage, found that on average the brains of those taking the folic acid, Vitamin B6 and B12 treatment shrank at a rate of 0.76 per cent a year and brain of those in the placebo group shrank by 1.08 per cent. People with the highest levels of homocysteine benefited most.
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