I wonder if B12 depletion is part of the disease? Ever since my LO has been daignosed, he has had to be on some form of B12 as his count would always be too low! Makes you wonder why it is depleted so quickly. He now has to have shots once a month. Is anyone else seeing the same thing? decblu
My wife M takes Cerefolin NAC pills in addition to aricept, seroquel, paxil and namenda for Alzheimer's. Cerefolin is also a B12 medication. Before Cerefolin she was sleeping too much in the mornings and afternoons. With Cerefolin she is awake most of the day and more aware of things.
She has been taking them for a year or so. I withheld them for a week recently and she went back to sleeping too much during the day. So I put them back in her medications.
Her cardiologist started her on Cerefolin with some free samples. He called them "food for the brain." Her other doctors were unimpressed said merely that it "won't hurt anything."
My husband was started on Cerefolin by his neurologist when his B12 levels were low. Of course, we hoped that was why he was having memory problems. It didn't seem to make a difference, but now we're afraid to take him off. The neurologist we go to now said that he should stay on since the Cerefolin was a good vitamin supplement.
Dr. S. put Sid on Metanx, which is also a high potency B6, B12, and folate vitamin as soon as he was diagnosed. I think, but am not sure, that his blood tests showed decreased levels of B. I have not researched it, but lower B levels seem to be associated with AD.
Vitamin B12 deficiency is often seen in older people, and may cause memory loss, disorientation, and dementia with or without mood changes. However, the neuropsychological profile of patients whose cognitive impairment is caused by the deficiency is distinctly different from that of AD patients; i.e., these are two different disorders.
If vitamin B12 deficiency is causing cognitive impairment and is treated relatively early in the progression of the disorder, the treatment may reverse the dementia. However, once the dementia is well-established, vitamin supplements rarely reverse it.
AD is not apparently affected by vitamin B12 treatment. However, vitamin B12 deficiency can cause other neurological symptoms which can respond to treatment. Also, B12 is pretty safe, and so is typically prescribed in the hopes that it will help the patient be more comfortable, at the very least.
B Vitamins Slow Brain Atrophy in People With Memory Problems
ScienceDaily (Sep. 14, 2010) — Daily tablets of certain B vitamins can halve the rate of brain shrinkage in elderly people who suffer from mild memory problems, an Oxford University study has shown... The study followed 168 volunteers aged 70 or over with mild memory problems, half of whom took high dose B vitamin tablets for two years and the other half a placebo tablet. The researchers assessed disease progression in this group by using MRI scans to measure the brain atrophy rate over a two-year period. The findings are published in the journal PLoS ONE. The team found that on average the brains of those taking the folic acid, vitamin B6 and B12 treatment shrank at a rate of 0.76% a year, while those in the placebo group had a mean brain shrinkage rate of 1.08%. People with the highest levels of homocysteine benefited most, showing atrophy rates on treatment that were half of those on placebo... http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/09/100912213050.htm
Here's the paper: "Homocysteine-Lowering by B Vitamins Slows the Rate of Accelerated Brain Atrophy in Mild Cognitive Impairment: A Randomized Controlled Trial" http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0012244
Here's the vitamin: "..The treatment group received oral TrioBe Plus® (Meda AB/Recip AB, Box 906, Pipers väg 2A, SE-170 09 Solna, Sweden) containing 0.8 mg folic acid, 0.5 mg cyanocobalamin and 20 mg pyridoxine HCl, or a placebo tablet... The treatment period was 2 years..."
I found a "Tri-B" supplement at my local health food store that seems very close to that used in the study. It is from Carlson Labs (in the U.S.):
A genuine B12 deficiency may not be diagnosed by regular bloodwork. A specific test needs to be ordered. I would hope that doctors do check B12 levels whenever someone presents with cognitive challenges, EOD or is diagnosed with a dementia. But probably we need to be pro-active and ask what our LO's B12 level is in order to get the specific blood test done. Sunshyne's comments (above) are apparently quite true. Very low B12 can cause irreversible cognitive losses if not diagnosed and treated in early stages.