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In the News, Spring 2023: Vitamin D Supplements May Help Prevent Dementia

A large-scale study, published in Alzheimer’s and Dementia, suggests that taking vitamin D may reduce risk of incident dementia and enable people to live dementia-free longer. Researchers analyzed data from 12,388 older adults from the US National Alzheimer’s Coordinating Center who had a mean age of 71 and were dementia-free at sign up. They found that vitamin D exposure (via supplementation) was associated with 40% lower dementia incidence over a ten-year period, compared with no exposure.
This finding was consistent across the three vitamin D formulations examined in the study: cholecalciferol (D3), ergocalciferol (D2), and calcium-vitamin D. However, the effects of vitamin D supplementation were significantly greater in women than in men and in people with normal cognition versus those reporting signs of mild cognitive impairment. Effects were also greater in people who did not carry the APOEe4 gene, a risk factor for Alzheimer’s dementia, than in carriers.
A limitation of the study was that no data on dosing or baseline vitamin D levels was available, and the researchers recommend that these factors be considered in future research. Nonetheless, it provides encouraging evidence that supplementation has the potential for dementia prevention, especially in high-risk populations.
Sources: Vennells L. Taking vitamin D could help prevent dementia, study finds. University of Exeter, March 2023. news.exeter.ac.uk/research/taking-vitamin-d-could-help-prevent-dementia-study-finds.
Ghahremani M, Smith EE, Chen HY, et al. Vitamin D supplementation and incident dementia: Effects of sex, APOE , and baseline cognitive status. Alzheimer’s & Dementia: Diagnosis, Assessment & Disease Monitoring, 2023; 15(1). doi:10.1002/dad2.12404.
Published in the Journal of Health and Healing™
Spring 2023 | Volume 47, Number 1
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