By Chantal Britt
April 15 (Bloomberg) — Vitamin E helped people with Alzheimer’s disease live longer with the degenerative brain disorder than those who didn’t take the supplement, according to research presented at a neurologists meeting in Chicago.
Patients with the irreversible brain condition who took vitamin E with or without a standard medicine were 26 percent more likely to live longer than people not taking the vitamin, the study showed. The combination of the drug with the vitamin was more beneficial than either agent alone.
Previous research has shown that the vitamin, which is naturally found in some vegetables oils, nuts and green leafy vegetables, can delay the progression of the brain disease. The new data, presented at the meeting of the American Academy of Neurology, showed that vitamin E also seems to prolong survival time of Alzheimer’s patients.
“This is particularly important because recent studies in heart disease patients have questioned whether vitamin E is beneficial for survival,” study author Valory Pavlik from Baylor College of Medicine’s Alzheimer’s Disease and Memory Disorders Center in Houston, Texas, said in a release.
The researchers followed 847 people with Alzheimer’s disease for an average of five years to see whether the vitamin helped patients live longer. Recent studies have raised questions about the safety and efficacy of vitamin E to treat Alzheimer’s disease patients, Pavlik said in the abstract.
About two-thirds of the group studied took 1,000 international units of vitamin E twice a day along with a cholinesterase inhibitor, a common type of Alzheimer’s drug. Less than 10 percent of the group took vitamin E alone and about 15 percent didn’t take vitamin E.
`More Research’
“People who took a cholinesterase inhibitor without vitamin E didn’t have a survival benefit,” Pavlik said in the release that was distributed by the neurology association. “More research needs to be done to determine why this may be the case.”
There’s currently no cure for Alzheimer’s and no way to slow its progression. Scientists are studying whether nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, cholesterol-lowering medicines or supplements such as folic acid, gingko biloba or vitamins E, B6, or B12 can slow progression of the disease.
Alzheimer’s disease is the most common cause of dementia in people 65 and older. More than 4.5 million people in the U.S. have the disease, according to the U.S. National Institutes of Health. The number of people who have dementia is set to rise to 42 million by 2020 and to 81 million by 2040 worldwide, according to research in 2005.
Pfizer Inc.’s Aricept, Johnson & Johnson’s Reminyl and Novartis AG’s Exelon are among the cholinesterase inhibitors approved to treat dementia. Doctors often also prescribe antidepressants such as Eli Lilly & Co.’s Prozac or psychosis drugs including J&J’s Haldol to relieve dementia symptoms.
Tags: american academy of neurology, baylor college of medicine, bloomberg, brain condition, brain disease, britt, cholinesterase inhibitor, degenerative brain disorder, green leafy vegetables, heart disease, heart disease patients, memory disorders center, neurologists, pavlik, previous research, study author, survival benefit, survival time, vitamin e
