Findings of a new study suggest that daily ingestion of large can considerably reduce shrinkage of brain in elderly people, thus slowing down memory loss in Alzheimer's disease.
Scientists from Oxford University who conducted the study have termed the finding as the "first glimmer of hope" for patients suffering from dementia or Alzheimer's disease.
The study
The researchers based their results on a two-year clinical trial, the largest till date to examine the effect of B vitamins on "mild cognitive impairment (MCI)".
"It is our hope that this simple and safe treatment will delay development of Alzheimer's in many people who suffer from mild memory problems," averred Smith.
For the purpose of the research, researchers administered a vitamin pill containing very high doses of folic acid, vitamin B6
and vitamin B12.
Some of the 168 volunteers under study were also given a dummy placebo pill.
The pills, termed as 'TrioBe Plus' had vitamins in extremely high doses.
They contained around 300 times the recommended daily intake of B12, four times daily advised folate levels and 15 times the recommended amount of B6.
The results
The analysis, conducted by way of brain scans at the beginning and end of the study, revealed that brains of respondents taking vitamin pills shrank, on average, at a rate of 0.76 percent a year.
The brains’ of the respondents in the control group on the other hand shrank at the rate of 1.08 percent.
"This is a very dramatic and striking result. It's much more than we could have predicted," said David Smith of Oxford's department of pharmacology and co-author of the study.
"It is our hope that this simple and safe treatment will delay development of Alzheimer's in many people who suffer from mild memory problems," averred Smith.
Co-researcher Prof. Helga Refsum added, "Here we have a very simple solution: you give some vitamins and you seem to protect the brain."
Globally, 16 percent of people over 70 years of age suffer from MCI. The condition is characterized by memory loss, language problems and other issues in mental health
.
Close to 50 percent of people with the condition go on to contract the far more brutal Alzheimer's disease within five years for which there is no treatment and no cure.
B vitamins control the level of an amino acid, homocysteine, in the blood. High level of homocysteine are associated with an enhanced risk of developing Alzheimer's disease.
The findings of the present study have been published in the 'Public Library of Science (PLoS) One' journal.
Paul Matthews, a professor of clinical neurology at Imperial College London said that the study “sets out important questions for further study and gives new confidence that effective treatments modifying the course of some dementias may be in sight."
source: themoneytimes
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