For Alzheimer’s disease prevention you need all eight forms of Vitamin E - and it may cut your risk of the brain destroying disease in half

    For many years scientists have known that Vitamin E protects the brain and it has been shown to reduce the risk of dangerous strokes in a number of studies. Studies looking at large populations, known as epidemiological studies, show that Vitamin E consumption lowers the risk of Alzheimer’s disease. Yet, studies using traditional vitamin E supplements known as D-Alpha Tocopherol have yielded disappointing results in an effort to curb Alzheimer’s.

     However, Nature offers eight forms of Vitamin E known as isomers; there are four Tocopherol and four Tocotrienol isomers. "Vitamin E is a family of eight natural components, but most studies related to Alzheimer's disease investigate only one of these components – tocopherol," said Dr Francesca Mangialasche, who led the study. "We hypothesized that all the vitamin E family members could be important in protecting against AD. If confirmed, this result has implications for both individuals and society, as 70 percent of all dementia cases in the general population occur in people over 75 years of age, and the study suggests a protective effect of vitamin E against AD in individuals aged 80+."

     It is important to get to the heart of this matter and truly find out the benefit or lack of in Vitamin E and this brain wasting disease because medicine so far offers no protection against Alzheimer’s disease. Every 70 seconds someone is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease and today it is 100 % fatal and there is no team of doctors to treat Alzheimer’ because there is no real treatment.

     The new study was conducted at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm at the Aging Research Center; the Karolinska Institute awards the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine so this is no light weight research center. The study involved 232 participants over the age of 80.

     At the start of the study all participants were dementia free but after six-years there were 57 cases of Alzheimer’s disease in the participants. Blood tests taken at the beginning of the study evaluated all eight vitamin E components. People with higher blood levels of the vitamin were compared with those who had lower levels, to examine whether these two groups developed dementia at different rates. “The study found that subjects with higher blood levels of all the vitamin E family forms had a reduced risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease, compared to subjects with lower levels. After adjusting for various confounders, the risk was reduced by 45-54 percent, depending on the vitamin E component,” said the researchers.

     These findings support the hypothesis that vitamin E’s protective activity seems to be related to the combination of different forms, rather than α-tocopherol alone, they concluded. This, they said, justifies the “protective effect of dietary intake observed in epidemiological studies and the disappointing results observed in clinical trials.”

"Elderly people as a group are large consumers of vitamin E supplements, which usually contain only d-alpha-tocopherol, and this often at high doses," said Dr Francesca Mangialasche who led the study. The study is published in the July 5th, 2010 issue of the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease.

Related Studies found on our website;

March 6, 2008

Vitamin C with Vitamin E supplements protect from senile mental decline

Researchers examined the data from the Canadian Study of Health and Aging: a population based investigation following individuals over 65 years of age for 5 years. The participants were given the Modified Mini Mental State test to determine signs of dementia at the beginning of the study. The 894 people with no sign of dementia at the start of the study were followed closely to assess the protective effects of antioxidant supplements. Individuals reporting a combined use of Vitamin C with Vitamin E supplements and/or Multivitamin use at the start of the study were significantly less likely to experience significant cognitive decline during a 5-year follow up period, cutting their risk in half. Any antioxidant supplement use had some protective value. The study is published in the April 2005 issue of the journal Dementia and Geriatric Cognitive Disorders.

Vitamin C and Vitamin E taken together very protective against Alzheimer's disease

Researchers have found that Vitamin C and Vitamin E protect the aging brain - but only if taken together and at a sufficient strength. Researchers at Johns Hopkins University in Maryland examined data on 4,740 people at or over the age of 65. The researchers found that taking a daily supplement of Vitamin C at 500mg a day or greater along with Vitamin E at 400 IU a day or greater, when taken in combination, decreased the likelihood of developing signs of Alzheimer's disease by 78% in the general public. Those not taking the combination or taking lower dosages did not have protection. The study is published in the journal Archives of Neurology a journal of the American Medical Association.