Vitamin E may slow early Alzheimer's decline: study

By Andrew M. Seaman NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Taking vitamin E during the early stages of Alzheimer's disease slowed declines in patients' ability to perform basic tasks by about six months in a new study. "It will be very interesting to see to what extent this will change practice," Dr. Maurice Dysken said. Researchers have studied vitamin E for possible benefits in slowing the progression of Alzheimer's, but those studies have yielded mixed results. For example, the researchers write in JAMA, past research has found the vitamin slowed disease progression in people with moderately severe Alzheimer's. But the vitamin was not effective at slowing the transition to Alzheimer's for people with so-called mild cognitive impairment, which typically precedes Alzheimer's. To see whether vitamin E - or a combination of the vitamin with memantine, a drug approved in the U.S. to treat Alzheimer's - would slow the rate of decline in people with mild to moderate forms of the disease, the researchers recruited 613 trial participants from 14 Veterans Affairs medical centers.



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