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Nutrition, Vitamins & Supplements for Seniors
Study Finds Long-Term Use of Beta Carotene May
Prevent Cognitive Decline
No convincing justification to recommend the use of
antioxidant dietary supplements to maintain cognitive performance:
editorial
Nov. 12, 2007 - Men who take beta carotene
supplements for 15 years or longer may have less cognitive decline,
according to a report in the November 12 issue of Archives of Internal
Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. Beta carotene is a colorful
fat-soluble compound naturally present in many fruits, grains, oil and
vegetables.
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Nutrition, Vitamins & Supplements |
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Decreases in cognitive ability—thinking, learning
and memory skills—strongly predict dementia, a growing public health
issue, according to background information in the article. Long-term
cellular damage from “oxidative stress” may be a major factor in
cognitive decline.
Some evidence suggests that antioxidant supplements
may help preserve cognition, although previous studies have been
inconclusive, the authors note. The government's MedlinePlus Website
says, "Intake of dietary or supplemental beta-carotene has been shown
not to have any effect on Alzheimer's disease risk."
Francine Grodstein, Sc.D., of Brigham and Women’s
Hospital (BWH) and Harvard Medical School, Boston, and colleagues
studied the antioxidant beta carotene and its effect on cognitive
ability in two groups of men. The long-term group included 4,052 men who
in 1982 had been randomly assigned to take placebo or 50 milligrams of
beta carotene every other day.
Between 1998 and 2001, an additional 1,904 men were
randomly assigned to one of the two groups.
Both groups were followed
through 2003, completing yearly follow-up questionnaires with
information about their health and their compliance with taking the
pills. The men were assessed by telephone for cognitive function at
least once between 1998 and 2002.
The long-term participants were treated for an
average of 18 years and the short-term participants for an average of
one year.
Men in the short-term group displayed no differences in
cognition regardless of whether they took beta carotene or placebo, but
men in the long-term group who took beta carotene had significantly
higher scores on several of the cognitive tests compared with men who
took placebo.
“In this generally healthy population, the extent
of protection conferred by long-term treatment appeared modest;
nonetheless, studies have established that very modest differences in
cognition, especially verbal memory, predict substantial differences in
eventual risk of dementia; thus, the public health impact of long-term
beta carotene use could be large,” the authors write.
Beta carotene is not without risks - or example, it
may increase the risk of lung cancer in smokers, the authors note.
However, its benefits against dementia surpassed those of other
medications tested in healthy older people.
“Thus, the public health value of beta carotene
supplementation merits careful evaluation,” the authors conclude.
“Moreover, as these data support the possibility of successful
interventions at early stages of brain aging in well-functioning
subjects, investigations of additional agents that might also provide
such neuroprotection should be initiated.”
Editorial: More Studies on Cognition and Aging
Needed
Though the results are plausible, other potential
explanations exist for beta carotene’s neuroprotective effects, writes
Kristine Yaffe, M.D., of the University of California, San Francisco, in
an accompanying editorial.
For example, men who take pills as assigned for 18
years may have certain characteristics that make them less likely to
lose cognitive abilities.
“For the clinician, there is no convincing
justification to recommend the use of antioxidant dietary supplements to
maintain cognitive performance in cognitively normal adults or in those
with mild cognitive impairment,” Dr. Yaffe writes.
“Furthermore, there is new concern that high-dose
antioxidant supplementation, including beta carotene, may have adverse
health consequences including mortality.”
Additional studies are needed to identify
preventive measures against cognitive decline, and the strategy of
adding a cognitive component to other long-term studies of supplements
and aging should be encouraged, she concludes.
Editor's Note: This study was supported by grants
from the National Institutes of Health and from BASF Corporation
(Florham Park, N.J.), Wyeth (New Jersey) and DMS (New Jersey). Dr.
Grodstein was partially supported by a New Scholars in Aging award from
the Ellison Medical Foundation.
Beta-carotene – by
MedlinePLUS
The name "carotene" was first coined in the early
19th Century by the scientist Wachenroder after he crystallized this
compound from carrot roots. Beta-carotene is a member of the carotenoids,
which are highly pigmented (red, orange, yellow), fat-soluble compounds
naturally present in many fruits, grains, oil and vegetables (green
plants, carrots, sweet potatoes, squash, spinach, apricots, and green
peppers). Alpha, beta, and gamma carotene are considered provitamins
because they can be converted to active vitamin A.
The carotenes possess antioxidant properties.
Vitamin A serves several biological functions including involvement in
the synthesis of certain glycoproteins. Vitamin A deficiency leads to
abnormal bone development, disorders of the reproductive system,
xerophthalmia (a drying condition of the cornea of the eye), and
ultimately death.
Commercially available beta-carotene is produced
synthetically or from palm oil, algae, or fungi. Beta-carotene is
converted to retinol, which is essential for vision and is subsequently
converted to retinoic acid, which is used for processes involving growth
and cell differentiation.
Intake of dietary or supplemental beta-carotene has
been shown not to have any effect on Alzheimer's disease risk.
>>
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