Vitamin B12 and Dementia
The May 2006 issue of the alternative health magazine Townsend Letter carried an article (not online) by Joseph G. Hatterlsey concerning the role of vitamin B12 deficiency in the development of various dementias, including Alzheimer's Disease. Vitamin B12 deficiency runs in my family, and although I have no proof, I suspect it may have been a contributing factor in my mother's wasting death from an uncommon dementia (not AD, according to her physician) in 2000. I discovered sublingual Vitamin B12 a few years ago (see my entry for March 1, 2003) and have used it periodically when I feel a little dragged out.
I think I may begin using it daily or at very least, weekly. The Townsend Letter article started me researching, and while relatively recent, the dementia connection is not crackpot stuff. Mild B12 deficiency can cause mild depression and sleep disorders, both of which I've struggled with since I've turned 50. My mother, in the years immediately prior to her death, suffered from severe depression and severe insomnia, which we always assumed were purely psychiatric disorders stemming from her bizarre Manichaean Roman Catholic faith and my father's long struggle with cancer. Now I'm wondering if she were B12 deficient as well, and kicking myself that we never suggested B12 injections, which are cheap and without significant side effects. (One occasional side effect is aggravation of acne, which I doubt would have been an issue in a 76-year-old woman.) The literature I've read doesn't imply that AD is caused by vitamin B12 deficiency, but that insufficient levels of B12 can aggravate AD symptoms and accelerate the progress of the disease. Bringing serum B12 levels back to normal can ameliorate AD symptoms, and slow the disease's progress.
Here's one of the better articles I've seen on B12. You apparently ingest B12 only through animal foods, but that ingestion is a complicated process involving partner proteins ("intrinsic factor") and folic acid, and the process becomes less and less efficient over the years. The elderly are thus most at risk for B12 deficiency, but vegans suffer from B12 deficiency as well simply because they don't eat the foods that contain it. (I think that our dependency on B12 is an excellent indication-furiously denied by certain crackpot vegans-that we evolved as meat eaters.)
I live by my brain (pace Woody Allen, I consider it my first favorite organ) and if a cheap and safe daily squirt of red stuff that doesn't taste too bad will help me keep it a little longer, well, I'm for it. The stuff can be had in almost any health food store. If you're over 50 and draggy, give it a shot. It works wonders for me. I only wish I had known this soon enough to have my poor mother try it.