The following picture summarizes the relationship between vitamin D/sun and dementia
Vitamin D is a neurosteroid hormone which:
- has immense neurophysiological effects
- has a clear neuroprotective effect and
- also has vascular-protective properties (stroke prevention).
Vitamin D deficiency means:
- a significantly increased risk of general cognitive decline,
- increased loss of executive functions of the brain (behavioral control taking into account the environment) and
- an increased probability for the development or outbreak of Alzheimer’s disease.
Not all the details about the intervention projects involving doses of vitamin D have been elucidated, but the conclusion is already clear:
Increased intake of vitamin D through diet or supplements improves cognitive performance, significantly reduces the risk of Alzheimer’s disease and potentially reduces cognitive decline in individuals who have already been diagnosed with dementia.
So reported Dr. med. Cédric Annweiler, from Angers University Hospital in Paris, at the conference “The role of nutrition in dementia – prevention and treatment”, at the New York Academy of Sciences as early as 2015, that an international panel of experts the following three questions:
- Can a vitamin D deficiency be understood as a risk for the onset of cognitive disorders and Alzheimer’s dementia?
- Can vitamin D status be an explanation for the variability in symptoms of Alzheimer’s dementia in older patients?
- Should vitamin D administration be part of disease management in cognitive diseases and Alzheimer’s dementia?
answered unequivocally with “Yes”!
More information about vitamin D and Alzheimer’s also available at our partner project “Die SonnenAllianz”…
….specially on the site: old people….
and also:
Unfortunately, these findings are also almost unknown in today’s retirement homes and nursing homes.
So the motto is: out in the sun, enjoy vitamin D-rich food (even if the amounts from these sources are extremely limited) and above all supplement the missing need (under control of the vitamin D blood level with a target value of about 60 ng/ml).
In older women, 800 I.E. vitamin D taken daily over long periods of time (in this case 7 years) can reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s disease by a factor of 5, as a non-placebo-controlled study shows.