The Vitamin That May Save Your Brain

We’ve certainly learned a lot more about the health benefits of vitamin D over the past decade. While it’s long been recognized that vitamin D is important for strong and healthy bones, it’s role in health and longevity is now recognized as casting a very wide net. Over the past several years, vitamin D deficiency has been associated with increased risk for such brain-related disorders as Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis, autism, and even dementia. With reference to the latter, a new study published in the journal Neurology, correlated low levels of vitamin D to increased risk of developing dementia to a far greater degree then anyone had predicted. The study represents a collaboration of multiple highly respected institutions around the world and evaluated a group of 1,658 elderly individuals who did not have dementia, and measured their vitamin D levels. The average follow-up was about 5 ½ years. Of this group, 171 participants developed dementia, and of those, 102 had full-blown Alzheimer’s disease. When the data was evaluated, the correlation of low vitamin D level to risk of developing dementia was profound. Even having a moderate deficiency of vitamin D was associated with a 53% increased risk of developing dementia of any kind. Those who were “severely deficient” were found to have an increased risk of dementia by 122%. Dr. David Llewellyn of the University of Exeter Medical School, lead author of the study said in an interview for ScienceDaily: ...
Source: Renegade Neurologist - A Blog by David Perlmutter, MD, FACN - Category: Neurologists Authors: Tags: Science Supplements Alzheimer’s Autism Dementia MS Parkinson's Vitamin D Source Type: blogs