This is according to a study called Effects of Vitamin E and Memantine on Functional Decline in Alzheimer’s Disease released in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
It adds that ‘supplementation with high levels of vitamin E (2000 IU/d of DL-alpha tocopheryl acetate) among patients with mild to moderate Alzheimer’s Disease resulted in slower functional decline when compared with placebo’.
The study, independently designed by the Department of Veterans Affairs Cooperative Studies Program, was a double-blind, placebo-controlled, randomised clinical trial involving 613 patients with mild to moderate Alzheimer’s Disease.
Participants received either 2000 IU/d of vitamin E, 20 mg/d of memantine (a drug under investigation for its role in the treatment of dementia and Alzheimer’s), the combination of both, or placebo. DSM Nutritional Products provided the Vitamin E (Quali-E) for this study.
Further, daily high dose (2000 IU/day) supplementation of vitamin E for a long period of time (2.3 years) did not raise safety concerns.
Within the vitamin E only group, vitamin E supplementation delayed the rate of clinical progression of Alzheimer’s Disease by 19% or 6.2 months over the follow-up period and reduced the amount of caregiver time by nearly two hours a day.
The placebo group lost approximately three units more on the ADCS-ADL inventory than the vitamin E supplemented group.
According to the study authors, ‘A loss of this magnitude could translate into either the complete loss of being able to dress or bathe independently’.
It should be noted that the vitamin E group was superior to the drug which was investigated in parallel in decelerating progression of Alzheimer Disease, and actually the author of the editorial commented the findings: (given) the limitations thus far of the therapeutic efforts for people with Alzheimer’s Disease, shifting to more emphasis on prevention seems warranted.
© FoodBev Media Ltd 2024