Some elderly people vulnerable to low vitamin B12 levels on mental function

Main Category: Public Health
Article Date: 15 Apr 2004 - 0:00 PDT

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Some elderly people who have a variant of a lipid gene (APOE4), which is known to increase a person chances of developing Alzheimer's disease, are more vulnerable to the detrimental effects of low vitamin B12 on mental function.

Researchers found that healthy people over the age of 75 who carried the APOE4 gene had worse memories when their B12 vitamin levels dropped below normal levels.

The team, lead by David Bunce, London University, monitored 167 people aged over 75, some of whom had the APOE4 gene and others did not. They had to do a series of cognitive tests.

28 people in the group were APOE4-positive and had low B2 levels, another 21 were APOE4-positive and had normal B12 levels.

In another group (within those 167 people) 54 were APOE4-negative with low B12 levels and 64 were APOE4-negative with normal B12 levels.

They then had to do various tests. One of the tests consisted of being presented with 12 unrelated nouns coming in at one per two seconds. Then they had two minutes to recall them. The results were as follows:

--- APOE4-positive group low B12 average score was 3.68
--- APOE4-positive group normal B12 average score was 6.48
--- APOE4-negative group low B12 average score was 4.78
--- APOE4-negative group normal B12 average score was 5.32
The APOE4-positive group with low B12 scored significantly lower than all the others.

The researchers then did the same, but this time looking at folate levels in the volunteers. They found some difference, similar to the one above, but less noticeable.

They concluded that elderly people who are APOE4-positive would benefit from B12 and folate supplements.

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