Elderly people who take vitamin D supplements long-term and regularly have 1.8 times the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease or other forms of dementia compared with those who do not, National Health Research Institutes (NHRI) scientists said yesterday.
The Ministry of Health and Welfare said that 7.78 percent of Taiwanese aged 65 or older have some form of dementia.
Vitamin D plays a role in maintaining cognitive function, and many studies have found that vitamin D deficiency correlates with an increased risk of dementia, leading many people to take the vitamin to prevent the disease, NHRI Institute of Molecular and Genomic Medicine researcher Juang Jyh-lyh (莊志立) said.
Photo: Lin Hui-chin, Taipei Times.
However, a study led by Juang and NHRI National Center for Geriatrics and Welfare Research scientist Hsu Chih-cheng (許志成), using the National Health Insurance database, found that elderly people who took a 0.25mg vitamin D3 supplement 146 days or more each year had 1.8 times the risk of developing dementia compared with those who did not take the supplement.
Additionally, people with dementia who took vitamin D3 had a 2.17 times greater risk of death, he said.
Juang said his research team conducted additional studies that experimented on mice, finding that mice with Alzheimer’s disease that were fed a vitamin D-sufficient diet showed significantly lower levels of serum vitamin D.
When vitamin D was decreased in the mice, the number of the vitamin’s binding receptors in the brain increased in the same plaques considered a trigger for Alzheimer’s disease, he said.
Overall, the study seems to show that vitamin D deficiency might be a result rather than a cause of Alzheimer’s disease, and that vitamin D supplements could hasten brain degeneration in people who have the condition.
However, Juang added that the findings do not suggest that vitamin D supplements have no benefit, as they could be valuable in other areas of health.
Juang said that he would remind people not to over-use vitamin D supplements.
Those who might be vulnerable to dementia should re-evaluate the need for the vitamin and consult a physician before taking the supplement, he said.
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