Vitamin E Blood Levels Linked to Mental Health
By Greg Arnold, DC, CSCS, January 17, 2012, abstracted from “Tocopherols and tocotrienols plasma levels are associated with cognitive impairment” printed online December 20, 2011 in Neurobiolgy of Aging
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, 5.4 million (22.2% of Americans 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.
The study involved 521 patients (168 with diagnosed Alzheimer’s Disease, 166 with mild cognitive impairment, and 187 normal) who were participating in the AddNeuroMed Project, a multicenter European study (12). They provided blood samples and completed mental health exams. Dementia was diagnosed according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fourth edition (DSM-IV) (13) and Alzheimer’s Disease was diagnosed according to the National Institute of Neurological and Communicative Disorders and Stroke-Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Disorders Association (NINCDS-ADRDA) criteria (14).
Because vitamin E is transported by plasma lipoproteins, whose metabolism might affect the delivery of vitamin E to tissues, vitamin E levels in this study were expressed as its absolute concentrations divided by total cholesterol (per millimole of cholesterol). This method serves as a better reflection of true vitamin E status in the body (15).
The researchers found the 187 normal cognitive patients to have significantly higher total 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) and 13% higher than the mild cognitively impaired group (7.8 vs. 6.9 micromoles)(p < 0.0001).
Because Vitamin E is not just one compound, but rather a vitamin family comprised of four tocopherols and four tocotrienols, the researchers also looked at these 2 major subtypes 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) and 20% higher than the mild cognitive impairment group (7.67 vs. 6.40 micromoles) (p < 0.0001), while total tocotrienol levels were 29% higher than the Alzheimer’s Group (118.02 vs. 91.33 nanomoles) and 21% higher than the mild cognitive impairment group (118.02 vs. 97.28 nanomoles) (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 (16). They went on to conclude that “plasma concentrations of different vitamin E forms are related to the diagnosis of Alzheimer Disease and mild cognitive impairment in elderly subjects.”
Greg Arnold is a Chiropractic Physician practicing in Hauppauge, NY. You can contact Dr. Arnold directly by emailing him at PitchingDoc@msn.com or visiting his web site at www.PitchingDoc.com
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