According to new research, vitamin C could play a role in the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease. Recent mouse studies revealed that vitamin C could have the potential to aid patients with Alzheimer’s disease. These recent findings suggest that treating Alzheimer’s disease with vitamin C could dissolve certain toxic proteins found in the brains of those with Alzheimer’s disease. These proteins are known as beta-amyloid plaques.
The study, published in the Biological Chemistry Journal, involved a research team from Lund University who used vitamin C to directly treat brain tissue in mice with Alzheimer’s disease.
Researcher and reader into Molecular Medicine at the University, Katrin Mani, noted that when researchers treated the affected brain tissue in mice who were suffering from the disease with vitamin C, they were able to clearly see the toxic proteins dissolving. The results of this study show a previously unknown manner in which vitamin C has the ability to affect the amyloid plaques.
Much recent research has gone into vitamin C and its role in treating a number of diseases. Based upon this mouse study, researchers suggest that with further research, vitamin C may be a simple way to treat or even prevent Alzheimer’s disease.
Studies that were conducted in the past showed that vitamin E and C, in large doses, could potentially prevent Alzheimer’s disease.
In 1998, M.C. Morris and fellow researchers from the Rush Institute for Healthy Aging and Rush Alzheimer’s Disease Center, conducted an observational study titled Vitamin E and Vitamin C Supplement Use and Risk of Incident Alzheimer’s Disease. This study suggested that vitamin C actually was able to reduce oxidative inflammation and stress levels which as thought to directly contribute to several neurological diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease.
According to researchers, vitamin C can easily be absorbed in relatively high levels just from drinking juice and does not necessarily need to come from fresh fruit.
This new theory that vitamin C has the potential to aid in the prevention and treatment of Alzheimer’s disease is still rather controversial, but such results open up a new wave of research that can be conducted to further extend the possibility of vitamin C being used to help patients with Alzheimer’s disease.
Based upon the findings of this study, researchers feel that low levels of vitamin C throughout a lifetime may actually contribute to the onset of Alzheimer’s disease.
References:
The Journal of Biological Chemistry. Suppression of Amyloid Antibody Immunoreactivity by Vitamin C. Fang, Cheng. 2011.
Blanchard, K. RN. 2011. Vitamin C treatment dissolves toxic Alzheimer’s proteins.