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Vitamins protect
against dementia

A Honolulu study indicates that
vitamins C and E improve brain
function in later life

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By Helen Altonn
Star-Bulletin

Taken regularly, vitamins C and E can protect against vascular dementia and improve brain function in later life, a Honolulu study suggests.

Pacific Health Research Institute scientists analyzed use of the antioxidant vitamins by 3,385 Japanese-American men in Hawaii ages 71 to 93.

"Basically, rates of dementia overall seemed to be lower in people who took a combination of vitamin C and vitamin E and, with little data available, it looked like the most powerful effect was vitamin E," said Dr. Lon White.

Most people who took vitamin E also took vitamin C and if they took only one vitamin, it generally was C, he said. A small number took only vitamin E "but it looked like that was where the action was," he said.

The study was part of a health research project that began in 1965 at Kuakini Medical Center with 8,006 volunteers identified through the World War II Selective Service registration file.

Dr. Kamal Masaki of Kuakini Medical Center, University of Hawaii associate professor in geriatric medicine, led the research on a possible link between between use of supplementary vitamins and development of dementia.

Besides White, team members included Drs. Helen Petrovitch, G. Webster Ross, David Curb and colleagues at the National Institute of Aging.

They have been studying dementia in a Honolulu-Asia Aging Study that began in 1991. Their latest findings support earlier studies that found antioxidant vitamins can slow progression of dementia, or memory loss.

"We found that combined vitamin E and C supplement use was associated with reduction of 88 percent in the frequency of subsequent vascular dementia," the scientists reported in the journal Neurology, published by the American Academy of Neurology.

They also found use of either vitamin E or C alone "was associated significantly with better cognitive test performance."

White said the researchers found no connection between use of the vitamins and Alzheimer's disease.

"It was a surprise to us," he said. "These findings are somewhat different than reported elsewhere."

Other researchers have claimed a connection between vitamin E in the diet and Alzheimer's.

"Our study pretty much stands alone in showing a major effect on vascular dementia and not on Alzheimer's disease," White said.

Masaki's team didn't see any relationship between vitamins C and E and clinically diagnosed stroke (when someone isn't able to speak or move an arm or leg).

However, the vitamins may have a strong effect on small silent strokes that often occur in groups and lead to vascular dementia, White said.

Vitamins C and E could be useful in preventing very small strokes or limiting the amount of tissue injury as a permanent consequence of stroke, he said. But so far, he added, this is speculation.

It's also possible, although the study didn't show it, that the process that causes Alzheimer's disease may add to the process that produces strokes, White said.

"Another suspicion we have is vascular dementia may not strictly be the result of vascular disease, but a combination of Alzheimer's acting in conjunction with stroke."