[Nubella News] - Taking folate and B-12 vitamins may not keep your mind as sharp as you grow older.

Dr. Murray Skeaff, a nutrition expert at the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand, said he could find no evidence in two years of research that the supplements help prevent mental decline in older people.

Nearly 45 percent of Americans take all types of vitamins daily, hoping for energy boosts, improved immune systems, and all kinds of other benefits.

Skeaff and his team centered their research on homocysteine, a protein found in the blood and whether folate and B vitamins would lower its level. Lowering the level of homocysteine would ward off mental decline.

Heart disease, dementia links

Previous students have linked high levels of homocysteine to Alzheimer's disease and other forms of dementia.

Homocysteine can make arteries stiffen and clog, leading to a higher risk of heart disease. Some studies show that people with homocysteine levels exceeding a certain amount stand at twice the risk of developing dementia.

Much to the disappointment of Alzheimer's researchers, Skeaff found no short-term benefits of using B vitamins to stave off mental decline, at least in people with high levels of homocysteine.

However, observers said the jury is still out on the effects of homocysteine on how the mind functions until longer studies involving more people are completed.

Alzheimer's disease and other forms of dementia that affect more than more than 24 million Americans.

According to Skeaff's article in the latest New England Journal of Medicine, he and his team studied whether homocysteine levels affected the ability to think, know, be aware, perceive, reason and judge - called "cognitive functions"- in 276 adults 65 and older.

The volunteers had high levels of homocysteine, but none suffered from dementia.

For two years, they took daily supplements containing 1,000 micrograms of folate, 500 micrograms of vitamin B12 and 10 milligrams of B6. Skeaff measured their cognitive functions at the beginning of the study and a year and two years after going on the pills.

Folates are B-vitamin nutrients found bananas, oranges, leafy green vegetables, asparagus, broccoli, liver, beans and peas.

After the two years, homocysteine levels did in fact drop, but the mental functioning of the adults showed no significant differences.

"If dementia is at the extreme of the continuum of cognitive decline, then, according to the 'homocysteine hypothesis,' we might have expected better cognitive performance in the vitamins group," Skeaff saids. "This did not happen. If there was a hint of anything - the emphasis is on hint - it was lower cognitive scores in the vitamins group."

'Love to see something' 

In an editorial in the same journal, Dr. Robert Clarke, a homocysteine expert at England's Oxford University, said the New Zealand research didn't include enough volunteers and didn't last long enough to warrant discarding the previous studies.

An advocate of the "homocysteine theory," Clarke said he couldn't rule out the possibility of benefits of lowering homocysteine over the long haul, especially with different doses of B vitamins.

William Thies, vice president of medical and scientific relations at the Alzheimer's Association in Chicago, called for more and longer research.
 
"We would love to see something as simple and relatively non-toxic as a vitamin intervention that would prevent dementia and Alzheimer's," he said. "This particular trial will not end the discussion."

Despite the disappointing results, Theis said the findings did show a substantial decrease in homocysteine levels - a good sign since foods in the United States, such as bread, are enriched with folate.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture began requiring that all grain products be fortified with folic acid in 1998. The supplement is key in helping prevent defects such as spina bifida in newborns.

However, some experts question whether folate fortification is safe for older people with vitamin B12 deficiency.

Source: Nubella News
Posted by: Steve Smith
Reference: New England Journal of Medicine
Website: www.nubella.com

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