Low Vitamin D Levels and the Risk of Dementia and Alzheimer Disease
Vitamin D and the Risk of Dementia and Alzheimer Disease
SOURCE: Neurology 2014 (Sep 2); 83 (10): 920–928 ~ FULL TEXT
This new Vitamin D study, published online in Neurology, tracked 1,658 elderly men and women for 5 years. At the start of the study, none of them suffered from dementia. The researchers controlled for many dementia risk factors — including age, education, sex, body mass index, smoking, alcohol use, diabetes and hypertension. They found that those individuals with vitamin D levels BELOW 50 (nanomoles per liter) experienced a 53 percent increased risk for all-cause dementia, and a 69 percent increased risk for Alzheimer’s disease. People with readings of 25 or less were more than twice as likely to have Alzheimer’s or another form of dementia.
