http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-09-09/vitamin-b-could-slow-advance-of-alzheimer-s-oxford-university-study-shows.html Taking vitamin B slowed the rate at which the brain shrank in elderly people who had trouble remembering things, Oxford University scientists found in a study that may guide further research into Alzheimer’s disease.
Vitamins B6 and B12, as well as folic acid, lower the levels of an amino acid called homocysteine that is linked to brain-cell damage similar to that seen in Alzheimer’s. Those with the highest levels of homocysteine in their blood showed the most benefit, according to the study published today in PLoS One, a publication of the Public Library of Science, a non- profit organization based in San Francisco.
The results conflict with earlier findings that Alzheimer’s disease patients didn’t benefit from the vitamin. A study of 340 patients with mild-to-moderate Alzheimer’s, published by the Journal of the American Medical Association in 2008, found no difference in the decline of patients’ memory, attention, language or orientation among people with mild to moderate forms of the disease, regardless of whether they took vitamin B.
“Further research is required before we can recommend the supplement as a treatment for neurogenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s,” said Chris Kennard, chairman of the U.K. Medical Research Council’s Neurosciences and Mental Health Board, in a statement.
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