Take that Vitamin E, Vitamin D Fights Cognitive Decline Too

If Vitamin D could talk, it would say to vitamin E, “Anything you can do, I can do better,” or so we like to think, based on results of a study published in the July 12 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine; they add to results we reported on yesterday that show vitamin E is connected to lower risk of developing dementia even after nearly 10 years of follow-up.

The Arch Inter Medstudy found that even low levels of vitamin D consumption were associated with “substantial cognitive decline in the elderly population studiedover a 6-year period, which raises important new possibilitiesfor treatment and prevention.”

Specifically, the study found the multivariate adjusted relative risk of substantial cognitive decline on the Mini-Mental State Examination in study subjects who were severely serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D [25(OH)D] deficient compared with participants with sufficient levels of 25(OH)D was 1.60. Further, “multivariateadjusted random-effects models demonstrated that the scoresof participants who were severely 25(OH)D deficient declinedby an additional 0.3 MMSE points per year more than those withsufficient levels of 25(OH)D.”

Looks like you, and your patients, better add some milk to your nuts and veggies.