The Connection Between Vitamin B12 And Dementia – And Why It Should Matter To You
Getting older means a lot of things: an accumulation of knowledge and wisdom learned over time, the respect of our friends and our peers, and a brighter birthday cake. It provides us the opportunity to view the events of our lives in a context we never had in our youth, and this can be a beautiful thing when we lived and loved with good friends and family by our side.
One thing that no one should have to deal with is dementia.
What Is Dementia, Really?
Dementia is a scary word, but perhaps it's more frightening than it should be. While it does occur alongside Alzheimer's Disease, it doesn't have to. Dementia is actually a syndrome – a series of symptoms, not a specific disease – due to which one's behavior, memory and ability to perform everyday tasks is affected.
Dementia is not a normal part of the aging process. Yes, our memory is affected to a limited degree as we get older, but dementia makes living life as the patient once knew it impossible.
The World Health Organization's dementia fact sheet states there are 50 million people living with dementia in the world today, and nearly 10 million more are expected to be diagnosed every year. Their condition causes problems which stretch beyond the neurological. Serious social and economic issues arise for both the patient and their families due to dementia and its treatment.
Studies Attempt To Test Dementia Cure
In the interest of discovering what's going on in so many people to cause these issues, the National Institutes of Health released information in 2016 regarding a number of studies. According to their work, there are intriguing associations between dementia and Alzheimer's patients and heightened levels of homocysteine levels in their blood.
This is simplifying an incredibly complicated topic, but essentially homocysteine is an a-amino acid in the blood which is non-proteinogenic – this means it's not created on its own by our bodies, but instead when we eat other things. Large amounts of homocysteine is unhealthy, so with the right B-vitamins – for instance B12, which we normally get from eating meat – this condition can be averted and the homocysteine can be recycled into other essential amino acids for our bodies.
As a result of these findings, testing was done by the Alzheimer's Disease Cooperative Study consortium to discover whether B12 treatments would reduce the homocysteine in their Alzheimer's patients' blood, and therefore treat the disease. Unfortunately, due to the small number of participants in the study, they were unable to draw any conclusions.
When Is Dementia Just Vitamin B12 Deficiency?
That being said, there's no question that a patient suffering from memory loss, depression, a loss of appetite and behavioral changes, in addition to problems walking, could be suffering solely from a vitamin B12 deficiency – and not dementia at all. A blood test detects the condition and a regimen of shots administered at regular intervals will stop the progression of symptoms.
Early detection is key. Neurological damage is possible if the untreated vitamin deficiency is severe enough. In that case, the B12 shots may not be able to heal it.
Most people become vitamin B12 deficient because they are unable to extract it from the food they eat, but as far as why they can't, the cause is usually unknown and in many cases, doctors are left having to make educated guesses. Meat is our biggest source of B12, but many conditions can get in the way of that – like Crohn's Disease, for instance. Some people choose to not consume meat, so vegetarians and vegans must adjust their diet to make sure their B12 levels are healthy. Medications also can play a role. For instance, consistent long term use of heartburn drugs reduces the amount of stomach acid you produce, which inhibits your ability to break down food into absorbable nutrients. Older people also naturally produce less stomach acid.
A Brighter Future For Dementia Patients
At the end of the day, will additional testing see vitamin B12 open a new door for dementia patients? Clearly there is common ground between the two – the homocysteine levels show that already. It's enough to at least make scientists take a second look and neurologists consider whether a patient's symptoms are indeed a condition, or simply a vitamin deficiency.
Regardless of the end result, patients who are over 50 or who have loved ones in that age range should see their doctors regularly and become as educated as they can. While the prospect of dementia is scary, there will be more advances in healthcare in the future – and specifically in the swiftly moving field of neurology.
The promise of more testing yet to come can only be seen as a good sign.
Nick La Salla is an experienced blogger and freelance journalist in the northern Illinois region. His publishing credits include the Rockford Register Star, Rockford Parent magazine, RVC Voices, Gingernuts of Horror, and the internationally recognized Famous Monsters of Film Land magazine.