A new study published in The Journal of the American Medical Association on Wednesday has indicated that taking vitamin E supplements during the early stages of Alzheimer’s can slow the progression of cognitive decline symptoms.
Study researchers said they found the supplement allowed patients’ to maintain their ability to perform basic tasks by an average of about six months.
“It will be very interesting to see to what extent this will change practice,” study author Dr. Maurice Dysken told Reuters. “I think it will, but we’ll have to see how people in the field such as providers view the findings and patients too.”
Previous research had revealed that the vitamin hampered the disease’s progression in people with a moderately severe Alzheimer’s. However, vitamin E had not been shown to be an effective treatment for people with a pre-Alzheimer’s condition called mild cognitive impairment.
For the new study, the researchers recruited over 610 volunteers between August 2007 and March 2012 from 14 Veterans Affairs medical centers. Participants were arbitrarily assigned to one of four groups.
One group took a daily supplement containing 2,000 International Units (IU) of vitamin E. A second group received the Alzheimer’s medication memantine. A third group took both the supplement and the drug and the final group took a placebo.
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