Eight essential nutrients constitute the set of B vitamins also known as the B B. Researchers at the University of TUFTS and in other places they have revealed that these B vitamins influence a vast spectrum of health and human disease, including cognitive function, cardiovascular health, recovery of gastric derivation, neural tube defects and even cancer.
“It is difficult to study vitamins B in isolation,” says gastroenterologist Joel Mason, a senior scientist at the Jean Mayer Usda Human Nutrition Research Center on aging (HNRCA) and professor at the Nutrition and Policy School of the School of Nutrition and the School of Medicine of the University of Tufts of Gerald J. and Dorothy R. Friedman. “Four of these B vitamins cooperate as cooperators in many critical activities in cells in what we call ‘a carbon metabolism'”.
A carbon metabolism is a series of roads that allow the transfer of units of a single carbon to cells for essential processes such as DNA synthesis, amino acid metabolism and more. It is their role in all these crucial biological functions that make vitamins B so important and so difficult to discover how they contribute positively and, perhaps negatively, to human health.
Mason and two additional researchers who pass their careers studying one or more of the B vitamins explain what we currently know about how the five of the most prominently investigated vitamins impact or improve cognitive and cardiovascular health.
Cognitive health, B12 and folate
One of the most active areas for vitamins B research is cognitive health. At the age of 75-80, 40% of people have a diminished capacity to absorb food B12, says Mason. This deficiency leads to a decrease in nerve health, particularly in the spine and the brain, which can contribute to the risk of developing dementia in older adults.
For decades, doctors and researchers thought that measuring Plasma B12 was precise enough to determine if supplementation was needed. However, says Mason, while many older people can have B12 levels that are in the ‘low A normal’ range, they are simultaneously developing neurological deficits related to vitamin B12 deficiency.
The contribution of the vitamin B12 deficiency to the cognitive decrease and vascular disease that results in many cases of dementia is subfised and is not reported. “
Irwin H. Rosenberg, Jean Mayer University Professor Emeritus, University of Tufts
Rosenberg is also a former Dean of the School of Sciences and Nutrition Policy of Friedman who also taught pharmacology at the Faculty of Medicine.
“Age -related cognitive deterioration is not just that of Alzheimer’s,” says Rosenberg. “We have gathered many types of brain dysfunction under a single name. And in doing so, we have overlooked how critical blood vessels, and by extension, nutrition is to preserve the function of the brain.”
The pathology of Alzheimer’s disease described the abnormal accumulation of two proteins in the brain-amyloid and Tau, which are grouped, forming plaques and tangles that are believed to interrupt the function of brain cells.
However, Rosenberg says that cerebrovascular disease and disease of small vessels, which in some cases are connected to the B vitamins deficiency, is more frequent with cognitive deterioration and dementia than the accumulation of harmful proteins in the brain, which has been the focus of such research and development of drugs to treat Alzheimer’s disease. Treating people with medications aimed at addressing protein accumulation will not work if the cause of dementia symptoms is a B12 deficiency.
The evidence to identify whether the cognitive decrease and the symptoms of dementia can be caused by a B12 deficiency, therefore, it is imperative, he says.
“The B12 tests measure all B12 in their system, although approximately 80% is inactive,” says Paul Jacques, a senior scientist at HNRCA and professor at Friedman and Politics Nutrition School.
To identify a B12 deficiency requires two additional tests. One, called MMA test, measures the levels of metimalonic acid, an acid produced during certain aspects of the adequate metabolism. “It can be raised even with a mild deficiency of B12, indicating a higher risk of dementia,” says Jacques.
A second test measures the levels of an amino acid, homocysteine, which is also a byproduct of metabolism required by B12. If only homocysteine levels are high, a folate deficiency can be the problem. If both MMA and homocysteine are high, a B12 deficiency is the probable culprit.
If a patient has neurological problems or signs of dementia, the realization of the three tests will be reduced if it is a BB vitamins deficiency, and what vitamin B is.
“Unlike the changes that we cannot see in patients who receive expensive anti-amyloid medications to treat Alzheimer’s disease, there is actually evidence that quite early in the course of the cognitive decrease, we can delay the process if the underlying cause is high of homocysteine or deficiency related to B12,” says Rosenberg. “It is my recommendation that patients, with or without anemia, are selected to detect a high homocysteine deficiency or B12 because that may be one of the reversible factors in their cognitive decline.”
This is not a new theory. Two decades ago, studies such as Framingham Heart study showed that high homocysteine predicted brain atrophy and a greater risk of dementia. More recently, essays such as Vitacog and FACT have shown that vitamins B supplementation can delay cerebral contraction and improve cognitive performance in those at risk.
“A huge amount of education on this subject is needed,” says Rosenberg. “We hope to convince cardiologists, neurologists and internists to measure B12 levels and homocysteine as part of the evaluation of cognitive deterioration. Even the modest effects of vitamins that costs of costs per day can be very significant in those that will benefit, especially when you are vitamin supplement benefit”. “.” “.”
B12 and dementia
Jacques and their colleagues currently lead a study using data of approximately 2,500 medium -age and older adults in the study of Framingham Heart, all free of dementia in the 1990s and all received B12, MMA and Homistesa tests for the past 20 years.
“The risk of dementia and the Alzheimer’s latest stage begins to increase when one is over 75 years old, but the evidence suggests that some of the pathological changes associated with dementia and Alzheimer’s Alzheimer’s can begin to develop more than 20 years before clinical symptoms and diagnosis,” says Jacques. “This study should give us good management on whether B12 is related to cognitive deterioration and dementia. If so, we hope we can identify a simple and economical intervention that could begin with years in advance and before real damage occurs.”
Jacques is also analyzing the role that folate (B9) can play in the development of cognitive problems, specifically the influence of high levels of folate in B12 and cognitive health.
In the 1950s, people with anemia were treated with folic acid, the synthetic form of folate. Unfortunately, it was clear that, although the pharmaceutical treatment with folic acid relieved anemia, it often masked or exacerbated B12 deficiency. “The scientists observed that people with low concentrations of B12 and high concentrations of folic acid tended to have cognitive problems,” says Jacques.
More recent investigations suggested that they were not total B12 concentrations that folic acid could be affecting, but perhaps only a component, Holotc, which is the form of vitamin B12 that is crucial to transport and use B12 in the cells and is considered a potentially better indicator of the vitamin B12 state.
Jacques and his colleagues are conducting two studies to separate the problems involved. “In the first, our B aging study of vamins and brain B, we will analyze the influence that the state of high folate has on the relationships between B12 and cognitive health. A second study that we are doing in collaboration with Rutgers will analyze the effect of high folic acid in the blood in the two forms of B12 -hohotc and cobalamin not united.”
Heart disease, cholesterol and stroke
V vitamins have also aroused the emotion among researchers due to their possible role in heart disease and the prevention of stroke, but so far their usefulness as a clinical treatment remains limited.
Scientists discovered in the early 2000s that Riboflavin (B2) could decrease blood pressure very effectively. It is believed that riboflavin improves a biochemical reaction mediated by a gene called MTHFF (methyletetrahydropholate reductase) that helps the body to use folate. However, riboflavin is only effective in reducing blood pressure specifically in patients with Mthfr 677 TT genotype.
Vitamins B6, B12 and folate help the body to get rid of homocysteine, which had been related to a greater risk of heart attacks and strokes, as well as dementia. However, a series of clinical trials in the 1980s showed that supplementation with B6, B12 and folate did not decrease heart attacks, but slightly decreased the risk of strokes.
Niacin (B3) can reduce LDL (the so -called “bad cholesterol”) and raise HDL (the so -called “good cholesterol”). “But it should be taken in doses so large that it often causes a very uncomfortable rinse, such as the suffocation,” says Mason. “People often cannot tolerate it, and other drug options are available that reduce the LDL of blood that do not have such unpleasant side effects.”
Chronic inflammation and B6
Perhaps the most promising for the future is the role that vitamin B6 can play to stop inflammation, which has been identified as an underlying characteristic of many chronic diseases, from heart disease to diabetes and arthritis and dementia.
Several studies in animals, plus some studies in humans, suggest that supplementary can reduce inflammation. “Once again, we are talking about giving vitamins B at an appropriate pharmaceutical level under the care of a doctor,” says Mason. “B6 can be toxic in large quantities.” He sees this research as an area to see in the coming years.
(tagstotranslate) brain
