The effect of taking the supplement was more pronounced among volunteers without the APOE4 gene, which increases the likelihood of developing Alzheimer’s disease.
TASS, March 1st. Doctors from Europe and Canada have found that regular intake of vitamin D reduces the likelihood of developing dementia by about 40% among older people aged 70 years and older. This was announced on Wednesday by the press service of the British University of Exeter, citing an article in the journal Alzheimer’s & Dementia.
“Reducing the frequency or slowing down the development of senile dementia is becoming an increasingly important goal for humanity, given the fact that the number of potential carriers of it is constantly growing. Our study showed that vitamin D can serve as one of the most effective means to solve this problem, ”said Byron Kreese, a researcher at the University of Exeter (UK), quoted by the press service of the university.
According to the World Health Organization, there are now 55 million people living with dementia in the world. One of the most common causes is Alzheimer’s disease. It is detected in 60-70% of cases.
This neurological disease leads to the death of brain cells, as a result of which a person has permanently reduced thinking, behavioral and social skills. He may forget a recent conversation, event, or the names of relatives, get lost in a familiar place, etc.
The researchers decided to find out how the frequency and likelihood of developing dementia is affected by the intake of vitamin D, whose molecules help to remove protein “garbage” from brain cells. To do this, they tracked how regular intake of the substance affects the brain function of more than 12 thousand elderly US residents, whose average age was 71 years.
As the researchers note, about a third of the participants in the experiment regularly took vitamin D, which allowed doctors to track the effect of the substance on the brain state of volunteers over the next ten years of their lives. During these observations, the scientists took into account whether the participants in the experiment were carriers of APOE4, a variation of the APOE gene, which increases the likelihood of developing Alzheimer’s disease by several times.
Observations showed that dementia developed in 2.7 thousand participants in the experiment ten years after the start of the experiment, and 75% of them did not take vitamin D throughout this period. Taking into account all the side effects, this means that regular intake of vitamin D reduced the likelihood of developing dementia among volunteers by about 40%, according to doctors.
Interestingly, this effect was stronger among those older volunteers who were not carriers of the APOE4 variant.
Crise and his colleagues suggest that the reason for this may be that the intestines of people with the APOE4 variant absorb vitamin D from food more actively than people without the mutation do.
The discovery, Kriz noted, has already prompted scientists to organize a clinical trial of VitaMIND, in which they offered several thousand volunteers aged 40 and over to take long-term vitamin D or a placebo. These experiments, scientists hope, will reveal the mechanism of action of vitamin D on brain cells, as well as help to understand why the APOE4 mutation reduces the effectiveness of the substance on the nervous system.
Proper nutrition can also help protect against dementia. See in the gallery what foods are recommended to be included in the diet to prevent this disease:
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