B vitamins may delay onset of dementia

From Seattle Times

"In the latest of a steady drumbeat of research that suggests diet, exercise and socializing remain patients’ best hope, a new study finds that vitamins B6 and B12 combined with folic acid slowed atrophy of gray matter in brain areas affected by Alzheimer’s disease."

"Older people’s brains shrink about 0.5 percent a year from the age of 60, and faster in people with vitamin B12 deficiency, mild cognitive impairment or Alzheimer’s disease, Smith said. If that pace can be significantly slowed before full-blown Alzheimer’s develops, older people could enjoy better lives until they die from another cause."

By Andrea Gerlin
Bloomberg News

LONDON — A cheap regimen of vitamins in use for decades is seen by scientists as a way to delay the start of Alzheimer’s disease and dementia, a goal that prescription drugs have failed to achieve.

Drugmakers including Bristol-Myers Squibb, Pfizer and Eli Lilly & have spent billions on failed therapies in a so-far fruitless effort to find an effective treatment for the two conditions.

Now, in the latest of a steady drumbeat of research that suggests diet, exercise and socializing remain patients’ best hope, a study published in May in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) shows that vitamins B6 and B12 combined with folic acid slowed atrophy of gray matter in brain areas affected by Alzheimer’s disease.

“You don’t have any other options for these patients, so why not try giving them this cocktail of B vitamins?” says Johan Lokk, a professor and head physician in the geriatric department at Karolinska University Hospital Huddinge in Sweden, who wasn’t involved in the study.

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