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>Vitamin E slows progress of Alzheimer's, researchers say - >By Jim Warren >Knight-Ridder Newspapers >(KRT) >LEXINGTON, Ky. - Heavy doses of vitamin E can slightly slow the advance of >Alzheimer's disease, delaying patients' loss of ability to dress, bathe or >perform basic activities, according to research by the University of >Kentucky and other centers being published Thursday. >The findings support theories that reactive oxygen molecules called free >radicals are key factors in triggering Alzheimer's, and they might point to >ways of eventually treating or even preventing the deadly disease. >UK researchers caution, however, that the results are preliminary, and that >no one should start taking large amounts of vitamin E without consulting a >doctor. >The study, in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine, says that taking >either vitamin E or a prescription drug called selegiline slowed patients' >loss of ability to perform daily activities, such as dressing and bathing. >The treatment also delayed by up to seven months the point at which >patients had to enter nursing homes. >A seven-month delay might sound modest. But with nursing homes costing more >than $100 a day, keeping patients out of the homes for even a few months >could save patients or their insurers significant amounts of money, said >Dr. Wes Ashford, a neurologist at UK's Sanders-Brown Center on Aging and >one of the investigators in the study. >Funded by the National Institute on Aging, the study involved 341 patients >at more than 20 participating medical centers. UK studied eight patients. >The volunteers, all with moderately advanced Alzheimer's, were divided into >four groups: One group received a placebo; one group took 10 milligrams of >selegiline daily; a third group took 2,000 international units of vitamin E >daily; and the fourth group took both drugs. Researchers then assessed the >patients every three months for two years. >Alzheimer's disease progressed more slowly in those who took the drugs. >Vitamin E produced a greater effect that selegiline, but combining the >drugs was less effective than taking either alone. >Overall, people taking the drugs showed 25 percent less deterioration in >abilities such as eating, dressing or cooking than those taking the >placebo. There was a 13 percent reduction in nursing home entries among >patients on vitamin E over the course of the study. >Vitamin E and selegiline, a drug often used to treat Parkinson's disease, >are anti-oxidants. That is, they block the effects of highly reactive >oxygen molecules called free radicals. >Earlier research at UK and other centers has suggested that free radicals >in the brain might accelerate Alzheimer's by helping to kill nerve cells. >This study, suggesting that anti-oxidants can slow Alzheimer's, in effect >supports the proposition that free radicals indeed are part of the disease >process, UK researchers said on Wednesday. >"If free radicals are a part of how nerve cells die ... then we ought to be >taking things that will prevent this early on," said Dr. William >Markesbery, director of the Sanders-Brown Center. "I think this is a really >important study." >William Schmitt, another UK researcher who worked on the study, said the >next step is to learn whether anti-oxidants can affect the early stages of >Alzheimer's or slow the onset of the disease in healthy people. Researchers >also need to know whether other anti-oxidants, perhaps those more powerful >than vitamin E and selegiline, can also work. UK is helping to plan such >studies. >But Schmitt stressed that no one, regardless of whether they have >Alzheimer's or not, should start taking either vitamin E or selegiline >without medical advice. While the compounds are mild, they can pose health >risks ranging from dizziness to bleeding, he said. >(c) 1997, Lexington Herald-Leader (Lexington, Ky.). >Visit Kentucky Connect, the World Wide Web site of the Herald-Leader, at >http://www.kentuckyconnect.com/ >Distributed by Knight-Ridder/Tribune Information Services. >CP 2242ES 23-04