Vitamin E, C Supplements May Prevent Alzheimer's

Article by Don Goldberg

Vitamin E, C Supplements May Prevent Alzheimer's

Mon January 19, 2004 05:09 PM ET

By Megan Rauscher

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - A study involving more than 4700 participants strongly suggests that the combination of vitamin C and E lowers the risk of developing Alzheimer's disease.

As the lead investigator Dr. Peter P. Zandi told Reuters Health, properly conducted prevention trials are needed to confirm the results.

However, "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 and other dementias in terms of genetic and environmental risk factors. As part of the study, 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 an individual vitamin E tablet 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 as a stand-alone tablet or in a multivitamin. If they took multivitamins containing lower doses of these two vitamins, they were categorized as "multivitamin users."

Zandi, at The Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, and colleagues identified 200 cases of Alzheimer's disease between 1995 and 1997 and 104 new cases during follow-up of 4740 participants.

According to the team's analysis, reported in The Archives of Neurology, use of vitamin E and C supplements in combination lowered the odds of having Alzheimer's disease at the start of the study by about 78 percent, and the odds of developing the disease by about 64 percent during the follow-up period.

There was also a trend toward reduced Alzheimer's risk among people who took vitamin E and multivitamins containing vitamin C.

In contrast, there was "no evidence of a protective effect with the use of vitamin E or C supplements alone, with multivitamins alone, or with vitamin B-complex supplements."

Currently, the recommended daily allowance for vitamin E is 22 IU (15 mg) and for vitamin C, 75 to 90 mg, the team points out. Although multivitamin preparations typically contain approximately these levels, individual supplements commonly contain doses up to 1000 IU of vitamin E and 500 to 1000 mg or more of vitamin C.

"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 conclude.

Zandi also pointed out that there may be a biological reason why the two vitamins together produce a benefit, related to the different duration of their antioxidant effects.

"Vitamin E is a lipid-soluble vitamin that sticks around in fat tissues of the body for a relatively long time," he explained. "In contrast, vitamin C is a water-soluble vitamin and is rapidly excreted from the body. Vitamin C may act to 'recharge' the antioxidant capacities of vitamin E so that the vitamin E can sustain its job of soaking up free radicals and relieving oxidative stress in the body."

SOURCE: Archives of Neurology, January 2004.

© Reuters 2004. All Rights Reserved.