Vitamin A deficiency linked to Alzheimer's disease

Conclusions Overall, this study finds a link between vitamin A deficiency, or marginal deficiency, and poorer cognitive performance in older adults. Alzheimer's mice fed a marginally deficient diet showed greater production of the amyloid protein plaques – and the researchers showed that the offspring of mice fed this diet had poorer spatial learning. However, caution must be taking when drawing any conclusions from this study, and the results certainly should not be taken as a reason to start taking vitamin A supplements. The human study was a one-off assessment of blood vitamin A levels and cognitive function that doesn't prove cause and effect. We don't know the temporal relationship and can't say that low vitamin A preceded any cognitive decline. This was also a fairly small sample of 330 people with variable levels of cognitive impairment – not all with dementia. Another sample may not have found the same results, and the results may have been different in a sample of people from a different culture or society. These people all came from China. As the researchers say, vitamin A deficiency is particularly a problem in developing countries. Some level of deficiency was quite prevalent in these people, but we can't assume the same would be seen if sampling older adults from the UK, for example. We don't know how common vitamin A deficiency is among pregnant women in this country. And pregnant women are not mice genetically engineered to develop Alzheimer's. The ...
Source: NHS News Feed - Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Neurology Pregnancy/child Food/diet Source Type: news