Vitamin E Blood Levels Linked to Mental Health

by | Jun 19, 2012 | 2011, Alzheimer's Disease, Brain Health, Vitamin E

Written by Greg Arnold, DC, CSCS. In a study with 521 patients, blood levels of vitamin E were 20% higher in the normal patients than those with Alzheimer’s disease.

Alzheimer’s disease, the most common form of dementia among older adults, affects parts of the brain that control thinking, remembering and making decisions. Its ability to seriously impair a person’s ability to complete daily activities is a significant contributor to its $100 billion annual cost (1).  In addition to the 5 million Americans with Alzheimer’s Disease, and additional 5.4 million Americans (22.2% of American age 71 years or older) have cognitive impairment without dementia (2), totaling more than 10 million Americans with at least some form of cognitive impairment.

With the risk of Alzheimer’s Disease doubling every 5 years beyond the age of 65 (1), the need to address mental health in the aging population is extremely important.

Now a new study (11) has linked blood levels of vitamin E to mental health. In the study, 521 patients (168 with diagnosed Alzheimer Disease, 166 with mild cognitive impairment, and 187 normal) participating in the AddNeuroMed Project, a multicenter European study (12) provided blood samples and completed mental health exams, with dementia being diagnosed according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fourth edition (DSM-IV) (13) and Alzheimer’s Disease diagnosis done according to the National Institute of Neurological and Communicative Disorders and Stroke-Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Disorders Association (NINCDS-ADRDA) criteria (14).

The researchers found the 187 normal cognitive patients to have significantly higher vitamin E levels than both the Alzheimer’s Group and the mild cognitively impaired group. Specifically, total vitamin E levels were 20% higher than the Alzheimer’s Group (7.80 vs 6.49 micromoles per millimole of cholesterol) and 13% higher than the mild cognitively impaired group (7.8 vs 6.9 micromoles/mmol) (p < 0.0001). When the researchers looked at the 2 different types of vitamin E, those without any cognitive impairment levels had 13% higher levels of tocopherols than the Alzheimer’s Group (7.67 vs 6.80 micromoles/mmol) and 20% higher than the mild cognitive impairment group (7.67 vs 6.40 micromoles/mmol) (p  < 0.0001) while total tocotrienol levels were 29%  higher than the Alzheimer’s Group (118.02 vs 91.33 nanoMolar per mmol cholesterol) and 21% higher than the mild cognitive impairment group (118.02 vs 97.28 nM/mmol) (p < 0.0001).

While the researchers point to vitamin E’s antioxidant properties as the most probable reason for its’ mental health benefits, they do admit “the functional implications of these [antioxidant] properties are not yet fully understood, and the mechanisms that control vitamin E concentrations in humans are largely unknown (14).  They went on to conclude that “plasma concentrations of different vitamin E forms are associated with the diagnosis of Alzheimer Disease and mild cognitive impairment in elderly subjects.”

Source: Mangialasche, Francesca, Weili Xu, Miia Kivipelto, Emanuela Costanzi, Sara Ercolani, Martina Pigliautile, Roberta Cecchetti et al. “Tocopherols and tocotrienols plasma levels are associated with cognitive impairment.” Neurobiology of aging 33, no. 10 (2012): 2282-2290.

© 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Posted June 19, 2012.

References:

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