kind2creatures
...elusive dreamer
- Joined
- Apr 5, 2009
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- USA
More information about how nutrients like Vitamin B12, Vitamin E, Vitamin C, Vitamin D and Omega 3s, can help prevent Alzheimers.
First study to link nutrients in blood to brain shrinkage and dementia
In all, the research involved 104 people with an average age of 87 who had few risk factors for memory and thinking problems. Lab tests were performed to measure levels of various nutrients present in the blood of each research subject. All of the study participants also took cognitive tests to measure their memory and thinking skills and 42 had MRI scans to measure their brain volume. Vitamin B 12 and especially vitamin D were found to be the nutrients most lacking in the research subjects. In fact, a whopping 25 percent of all the research subjects had a deficit in vitamin D.
The study, which was funded by the National Institutes of Health, the National Institute on Aging and National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine and the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs, Portland VA Medical Center, was the very first to look for nutrients in the blood to investigate how diet effects memory, thinking skills and brain volume.
Earlier studies have focused on only one or a few nutrients at a time and have used questionnaires to assess people's diets. But questionnaires are known to be somewhat unreliable; they rely on people's memory of what they've eaten and they also don't measure how well nutrients are absorbed by the body, which can be problematic in elders.
In a statement to the media, study author Gene Bowman, ND, MPH, of Oregon Health and Science University in Portland and a member of the American Academy of Neurology, said that the nutrient biomarkers in the blood accounted for a significant amount of the variation in both brain volume, thinking and memory scores. "These results need to be confirmed, but obviously it is very exciting to think that people could potentially stop their brains from shrinking and keep them sharp by adjusting their diet," Dr. Bowman stated.