Advice for everyone over 60. take an inexpensive multivitamin daily.
Is it possible that one of the biggest medical and social threats to the population of developed countries, the rapid aging of the population and the increasing number of elderly people with Alzheimer’s disease, can be simply and easily prevented or at least delayed by taking a single pill? cheap for that?
It is estimated that 46 million elderly patients worldwide will soon suffer from Alzheimer’s disease.
The burden on their families, care facilities and governments to pay to house and care for these unfortunate individuals is now enormous and will become catastrophic unless some relief is found.
Now it appears that while it may not be a cure for those already suffering from cognitive decline, there may be a way to reduce the number of people who develop the condition.
That’s preliminary information coming from a recently published study conducted over the years by Wake Forest University School of Medicine in collaboration with Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.
(NOTE: Brigham and Women’s is across the street from Harvard Medical School and is actually the clinical arm of the medical school. Disclaimer, I am a Harvard graduate, but have no affiliation with the medical school.)
The study protocols were so simple they could almost be a long-term high school science project, but the results could be a real game-changer for doctors, seniors, and even the government as they prepare for the ever-increasing number of people with intellectual disabilities. disabled elderly people.
A new drug?
There is massive investment in the drug research community to find new treatments for elderly dementia, but the only current drug costs $46,000 a year and is only moderately beneficial, it is not a cure, it makes little difference to the lives of those affected.
Medicare, which covers about 90 percent of the elderly who would need the drug, does not cover the drug, and given how little use it is, it’s hard to criticize the government’s decision.
The newly FDA-approved Alzheimer’s drug lecanemab does not yet have a price tag, but it is expected to be very high.
Even worse, at best it only adds about six months to a patient’s life, and while that may be a big advance for people with certain diseases like cancer, would an extra six months of life with dementia really be that amazing?
“Pharmaceutical companies Eisai and Biogen recently he announced data for a phase 3 Alzheimer’s disease clinical trial. The results show that lecanemab, an anti-amyloid antibody, slowed the rate of cognitive decline by 27% in an 18-month study involving participants who had early-stage Alzheimer’s disease. The incidence of adverse events was 21.3% in those receiving lecanemab and 9.3% in those receiving placebo. About 25% of the American participants in this study were Hispanic and African American. [NIH]
Personally, I would pass.
Daily multivitamin study protocol
The name of the overall study is COSMOS-Mind (Cocoa Supplement and Multivitamin Outcomes Study of the Mind)
The researchers began by selecting 2,262 individuals with an average age of 73 (3 years ago at the start of the study). The majority were non-Hispanic whites, nearly 90%, and 60% were women.
After completing the initial baseline cognitive study, the group was randomly divided into three groups.
One was given a multivitamin every day, nothing special, just an over the counter type of vitamin and mineral supplement.
Another third were given cocoa extract, which was rich in flavonoids thought to improve brain activity in older people (perhaps to be confused with the idea that cocoa butter/oil can provide energy to Alzheimer’s brain cells that stop working properly , because glucose, the body’s main energy source, cannot enter cells, while cocoa oil can.)
A third of the group were given secret drugs that were simply a placebo or an inactive supplement that did nothing.
A placebo is necessary in any scientific biological study to ensure that some other factor, such as simply being part of the study and gaining more attention as a result, could be the cause of any major change.
Participants were then given simple cognitive assessments during telephone interviews and tabulated the results.
Cocoa extract results
To the surprise of many, it turned out that the cocoa extract had no effect, none at all, and produced the same numbers as the placebo group.
(NOTE, this would show nothing positive or negative about Dr. Mary Newport, MD’s theory that coconut oil could improve mental function in Alzheimer’s patients by providing nourishment to brain cells. See below for more details.)
This study “Effects of Cocoa Extract and a Multivitamin on Cognitive Function: A Randomized Clinical Trial” was published in the Alzheimer’s Journal, a peer-reviewed scientific journal. [Alz-Journals]
Multivitamin results
In summary, daily multivitamins reduced the incidence of dementia.
(“Cocoa extract had no effect on global cognition (mean z-score = 0.03, 95% CI: -0.02 to 0.08; P = 0.28). Daily MVM supplementation compared to placebo resulted in statistically significant benefit for global cognition (mean z = 0.07, 95% CI 0.02 to 0.12; P = 0.007), and this effect was most pronounced in participants with a history of cardiovascular disease (no history: 0.06, 95% CI 0.01 to 0.11; history: 0.14, 95% CI -0.02 to 0.31, interaction, nominal P = 0.01).
Multivitamin-mineral benefits have also been observed for memory and executive function. Cocoa extract MVM group interactions were not significant for any of the cognitive composites.”)
Learn more about Alzheimer’s disease
Dr. Mary Newport, MD, based her ideas on tests she performed on her own husband.
[Nutraingredients-usa]
Coconut oil for Alzheimer’s disease – separating fact from fiction