Vitamin B supplements do not slow down cognitive decline in Alzheimer’s patients, a new study says

A new study finds that Vitamin B supplements are not helpful to slow down cognitive decline in patients with Alzheimer’s disease.

As the theory says that vitamin B may help to slow down the development of Alzheimer’s symptoms as it can lower homocysteine levels that are high in Alzheimer’s patients.

Dr. Paul S. Aisen, who led the study, said: “our findings show that we succeeded to lower homocysteine levels, but it couldn’t be translated into clinical or cognitive benefits. And the disappointing conclusion of the study is that high-dose vitamin B treatment has no help for the disease.”The results of the study will be published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in the Oct. 15 issue.

In their study, the researchers randomly assigned 409 Alzheimer’s patients to high doses of folate, vitamin B6, B12 or a placebo. Afterward they measured the rate of cognitive decline with Alzheimer’s Disease Assessment Scale.

After 18 months follow up, the researchers found that homocysteine levels were low in vitamin B group, but there was no decrease in the cognitive decline rate. The researchers didn’t find any considerable difference among those who taking supplements and those who were on placebo.

It is worth mentioning that the people who were taking high-dose vitamin B supplements had even more symptoms of depression than those who were on placebo.