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Summary
Taking certain B vitamin supplements on a daily basis can cut in half the rate of brain shrinkage in elderly people suffering from mild memory problems, reveals a new Oxford University study. Approximately 1 in 6 elderly people over the age of 70 has mild cognitive impairment, experiencing troubles with memory, language or other mental functions, but not enough to interfere with everyday life. About half of people with mild cognitive impairment will go on to develop dementia - mainly Alzheimer's disease - within five years of diagnosis. Certain B vitamins - vitamin B6, vitamin B12 and folic acid - control levels of homocysteine in the blood, and it is known that high levels of this amino acid are linked to an increased risk for Alzheimer's. So a team from the Oxford Project to Investigate Memory and Ageing (OPTIMA) set out to discover whether supplements of these B vitamins could slow down the higher rate of brain shrinkage, or atrophy, as seen in mild cognitive impairment or Alzheimer's. The study observed 168 volunteers aged 70 or over with mild memory problems. Half of these volunteers took high-dose B vitamin tablets for two years while the other half took a placebo tablet. The scientists evaluated disease progression in this group by using MRI scans to measure the brain atrophy rate over a two-year period. The findings are published in the journal PLoS ONE. The researchers found that the brains of those taking folic acid, vitamin B6 and B12 supplements shrank at a rate of about 0.76 percent a year, while those in the placebo group had a mean brain shrinkage rate of 1.08 percent. People with the highest levels of homocysteine benefited the most, showing atrophy at only half the rate of those on placebo. It is our hope that this simple and safe treatment will delay the development of Alzheimer's disease in many people who suffer from mild memory problems, said Professor David Smith of the department of pharmacology at Oxford University, a co-leader of the trial. Along with studying the rate of brain shrinkage, the scientists also evaluated cognitive test scores, discovering that those with the slowest rate of shrinkage scored the strongest in cognition.
