Thursday, September 11, 2008

Vitamin B12 may prevent brain shrinkage

A study, led by scientists at Oxford University, involving 107 healthy elderly found that those with lower vitamin B12 levels in their blood were six times more likely to experience brain shrinkage compared with those who had higher levels of the vitamin.


Particpants were given annual scans of their brain volume, blood tests to assess the vitamin B12 levels as well as physical examinations for up to five years. The researcher said "this study suggests that simply adjusting our diets to consume more vitamin B12 through eating meat, fish, fortified cereals or milk may be something we can easily adjust to prevent brain shrinkage and so perhaps save our memory."


However, "more information is needed before recommending that people take vitamin B12 supplements to guard against the loss of brain volume and possibly prevent declines in thinking and memory", the author concluded.



Source: "Vitamin B12 status and rate of brain volume loss in community-dwelling elderly". Neurology 2008; 71:826–832

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