This vitamin lowers your risk of Alzheimer's disease

Everyone knows that vitamin D is vital for healthy bones and a stronger immune system but could low levels be a major driver of Alzheimer's and age-related cognitive decline?

Vitamin D supplementation may reduce future dementia risk, study suggests.

New research suggests that the levels of vitamin D commonly found in the UK are accelerating cognitive decline and increasing the risk of a dementia diagnosis and that supplementing with vitamin D, especially in the winter, can reduce future dementia risk.

The degree of obesity, darker skin colour and living further North increases need of this vitamin.

In a study in France those with low vitamin D levels, below 50 nmol/L, had a nearly three-fold increased risk of Alzheimer's.

Supplements also help ward off dementia, according to a large-scale study earlier this year involving over twelve thousand dementia-free 70+ year olds. More than a third (37%) took supplements of vitamin D and those that did had a 40% lower incidence of dementia.

All the evidence regarding cardiometabolic diseases, cancer, diabetes, infectious diseases and pregnancy outcomes shows that you need a blood level of vitamin D above 75 nmol/L to be healthy, and the same is proving true for the brain. This optimal level is impossible to achieve without supplementation in the winter.

Source: News-Medical.net