Antioxidant Vitamins May Prevent Alzheimer's

In a recent landmark study involving more than 4700 participants, risk for Alzheimer's disease has been shown to be dramatically decreased a combination of vitamin C and E. As lead author Peter Zandi stated, "because vitamins E and C are relatively non-toxic and are believed to have wide-ranging health benefits, they may offer a very attractive strategy for preventing Alzheimer's disease." The findings come from the Cache County Study, which looked at the prevalence of Alzheimer's disease in relation to nutritional supplements. People aged 65 and older were assessed for dementia between 1995 and 1997 and again between 1998 and 2000.

The participants were categorized as "vitamin E users" if they took vitamin E or a multivitamin containing more than 400 international units of vitamin E every day. They were classified as "vitamin C users" if they took at least 500 milligrams per day of vitamin C alone or in a multivitamin. The report, published in The Archives of Neurology, found that use of vitamin E and C supplements in combination lowered the odds of having Alzheimer's disease by about 78 percent, and the odds of developing the disease by about 64 percent during the follow-up period.

"Our findings suggest that vitamins E and C may offer protection against AD when taken together in the higher doses available from individual supplements," the researchers concluded.

This study again confirms the important role for antioxidant protection in protecting the brain against the damaging effects of free radicals.

David Perlmutter, MD, FACN

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Vitamin C
Vitamin E

2004-03