Vitamin C and beta-carotene help protect against Alzheimer's dementia

Vitamin C and beta-carotene help protect against Alzheimer's dementia


(NaturalNews) Alzheimer's dementia strikes fear in millions of aging
individuals, as this memory robbing disease strikes one in eight older
Americans and more than half over the age of 80. Pharmaceutical
companies have lined up in an attempt to find a synthetic pill that will
prevent or treat this condition. Despite spending billions of dollars
on research, all attempts have proven fruitless in a desperate attempt
to profit from the suffering of millions around the globe. Yet the true
key to prevention may be in the bounty of natural fruits and vegetables
so deficient in the typical western diet.

Critical support for
the importance of a natural diet packed with antioxidant vitamins and
nutrients comes from a group of researchers at the University of Ulm in Germany that has been published in the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease.
A research team headed by Dr. Christine von Arnim has discovered that
the serum-concentration of the antioxidants vitamin C and beta-carotene
are significantly lower in patients with mild dementia than in control
persons.

This finding means that it is possible to influence the
pathogenesis of Alzheimer's disease by bolstering a person's diet with
healthy foods and dietary antioxidants. Alzheimer's disease is
characterized by significant changes in brain chemistry that alter
electrical and chemical transmissions that affect learning, memory and
cognition.

Vitamin C and beta-carotene help clear dangerous protein accumulations in the brain

Forward-thinking
scientists believe that oxidative stress from external pollutants,
household chemicals and hybridized foods over the course of decades
leads to this fatal form of dementia. To further examine the effect of
antioxidants from foods and supplemental forms on progression of the
disease, researchers developed a cohort of 74 Alzheimer's patients and 158 healthy control participants.

The
participants, aged between 65 and 90 years, underwent
neuropsychological testing and answered questions regarding their
lifestyle. Additionally, their blood was examined for levels of key
antioxidants (vitamin C,
vitamin E, beta-carotene, lycopene and coenzyme Q10) and BMI was
calculated. Researchers found that concentrations of vitamin C and
beta-carotene in the serum of Alzheimer's patients were significantly
lower than in the blood of control subjects. No difference between the
groups could be found for the other antioxidants tested.

It may
come as no surprise to natural health followers that a variety of
nutrients from natural food sources and supplements help in the
prevention and treatment of many potentially lethal diseases. Vitamin C
and beta-carotene
cross the blood-brain barrier where they help to squelch stress-related
oxidation. In this capacity, the duo synergistically promote the normal
clearance of amyloid proteins to help protect against Alzheimer's
dementia.


Source:-
http://www.naturalnews.com/037266_vitamin_C_beta-carotene_Alzheimers.html