From: drarwingnuttephd@gmail.com   
      
   B vitamins found to halve aging brain shrinkage   
   Last Updated: 2010-09-09 10:26:30 -0400 (Reuters Health)   
      
   By Kate Kelland   
      
   LONDON (Reuters) - Daily tablets of large doses of B vitamins can   
   halve the rate of brain shrinkage in elderly people with memory   
   problems and may slow their progression towards dementia, data from a   
   British trial showed on Wednesday,   
      
   Scientists from Oxford University said their two-year clinical trial   
   was the largest to date into the effect of B vitamins on so-called   
   "mild cognitive impairment" - a major risk factor for Alzheimer's   
   disease and other forms of dementia.   
      
   Experts commenting on the findings said they were important and called   
   for larger, longer full-scale clinical trials to see if the safety and   
   effectiveness of B vitamins in the prevention of neurodegenerative   
   conditions could be confirmed.   
      
   "This is a very dramatic and striking result. It's much more than we   
   could have predicted," said David Smith of Oxford's department of   
   pharmacology, who co-led the trial.   
      
   "It is our hope that this simple and safe treatment will delay   
   development of Alzheimer's in many people who suffer from mild memory   
   problems."   
      
   Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) affects around 16 percent of people   
   aged over 70 worldwide and is characterized by slight problems with   
   memory loss, language or other mental functions.   
      
   MCI does not usually interfere with daily life, but around 50 percent   
   of people diagnosed with it go on to develop the far more severe   
   Alzheimer's disease within five years. Alzheimer's is a mind-wasting   
   disease for which there are few treatments and no cure, and which   
   affects 26 million people around the world.   
      
   Smith and colleagues conducted a two-year trial with 168 volunteers   
   with MCI who were given either a vitamin pill containing very high   
   doses of folic acid, vitamin B6 and vitamin B12, or a placebo dummy   
   pill.   
      
      
   Read More:   
   http://www.reutershealth.com/archive/2010/09/09/eline/links/2010   
   909elin007.html   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)