Tag Archives: Gerontology

Vitamin D reduces demetia risk

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Women should take Vitamin D supplements to reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s disease, according to new research.

Two new studies show that women who don’t have enough Vitamin D as they hit middle age are at greater risk of going into mental decline and developing Alzheimer’s.

The first of the studies found that women who developed Alzheimer’s disease had lower vitamin D intakes than those who did not develop the illness.

Dr Cedric Annweiler, of Angers University Hospital in France, looked at data from nearly 500 women who participated in the Toulouse cohort of the Epidemiology of Osteoporosis study.

He found that women who developed Alzheimer’s had an average vitamin D intake of 50.3 micrograms a week, whereas those who developed other forms of dementia had an average of 63.6 micrograms per week, and those who didn’t develop dementia at all averaged 59 micrograms.

The study highlights the role vitamin D plays in Alzheimer’s, a severe form of dementia which causes the sufferer to become disorientated, aggressive, forgetful and find even quite basic tasks difficult to carry out.

There is no cure for the illness, which affects around 400,000 people in England – a figure which is steadily rising as people live for longer.

Alzheimer’s disease

Alzheimer’s disease

Meanwhile, investigators led by Yelena Slinin at the VA Medical Centre in the United States found that women with a low vitamin D intake were more likely to encounter cognitive decline.

Ms Slinin analysed the vitamin levels of 6,257 older women who also underwent mental ability tests known as the mini-mental state examination.


Low levels of vitamin D of less than 20 nanograms per millilitre of blood serum were associated with higher odds of mental decline.

Scientists say both studies, which were published in The Journals of Gerontology, underline the importance of getting enough vitamin D, either through exposure to the sun, food or supplements.

Stress link to Alzheimer’s

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Previous studies have pinpointed the role of stress in Alzheimer”s disease and other neurodegenerative disorders.

Now, scientists at the USC have discovered why.

Corresponding author Kelvin J. A. Davies, the James E. Birren Chair at the USC Davis School of Gerontology, and Professor of Molecular and Computational Biology in the USC Dornsife College, examined the brains of rats that had experienced psychological stresses and found high levels of the RCAN1 gene.

Davies and his colleagues suggest that chronic stress — physical or mental — causes overexpression of RCAN1, in turn leading to neurodegenerative disease.

Think of a gene as a pattern or mold that generates specific proteins. For example, if 200 RCAN1 proteins are built where only 100 were needed, scientists would describe this as “overexpression” of the RCAN1 gene.

Alzheimer’s disease

Alzheimer’s disease

In a healthy person, the RCAN1 gene helps cells cope with stress. Overproduction, however, can eventually damage neurons, preventing the brain”s signals from traveling and causing disease.

Currently, there are two competing theories about the leading cause of neurodegeneration in Alzheimer”s disease: overproduction of the Amyloid Beta peptide and tau hyperphosphorylation. Research in the Davies lab suggests that overexpression of RCAN1 is connected to both, and appears to unite the Amyloid Beta and tau theories of neurodegeneration.


“Both are clearly important, and RCAN1 could be the link,” Davies said.

The study has tremendous implications for understanding and treating Alzheimer”s disease, the authors say.

The study has been published in the Journal of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology.