B Vitamins Don’t Stall Decline in Alzheimer’s

B vitamins don’t slow down the decline of mental function in people with Alzheimer’s disease, a study finds. The study included 409 people with mild to moderate Alzheimer’s. They were randomly assigned to take either vitamins or a placebo. The vitamins included were folate, B6 and B12. They took the pills for 18 months. People with Alzheimer’s have high blood levels of an amino acid called homocysteine. B vitamins can lower these levels. That’s what happened in the study, too. But tests showed that the B vitamins did not slow down people’s mental decline. HealthDay News and Reuters Health wrote about the study October 14. It appeared in the Journal of the American Medical Association.