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The Peninsula College of Medicine and Dentistry just issued the
following news release:

'Sunshine vitamin' link to cognitive problems in older people
Vitamin D linked to cognitive impairment

Researchers from the Peninsula Medical School, the University of
Cambridge and the University of Michigan, have for the first time
identified a relationship between Vitamin D, the "sunshine vitamin", and
cognitive impairment in a large-scale study of older people. The
importance of these findings lies in the connection between cognitive
function and dementia: people who have impaired cognitive function are
more likely to develop dementia. The paper will appear in a forthcoming
issue of the Journal of Geriatric Psychology and Neurology.

The study was based on data on almost 2000 adults aged 65 and over who
participated in the Health Survey for England in 2000 and whose levels
of cognitive function were assessed. The study found that as levels of
Vitamin D went down, levels of cognitive impairment went up. Compared to
those with optimum levels of Vitamin D, those with the lowest levels
were more than twice as likely to be cognitively impaired.

Vitamin D is important in maintaining bone health, in the absorption of
calcium and phosphorus, and in helping our immune system. In humans,
Vitamin D comes from three main sources - exposure to sunlight, foods
such as oily fish, and foods that are fortified with vitamin D (such as
milk, cereals, and soya drinks). One problem faced by older people is
that the capacity of the skin to absorb Vitamin D from sunlight
decreases as the body ages, so they are more reliant on obtaining
Vitamin D from other sources.

According to the Alzheimer's Society, dementia affects 700,000 people in
the UK and it is predicted that this figure will rise to over 1 million
by 2025. Two-thirds of sufferers are women, and 60,000 deaths a year are
attributable to the condition. It is believed that the financial cost of
dementia to the UK is over ?17 billion a year.

Dr. Iain Lang from the Peninsula Medical School, who worked on the
study, commented: "This is the first large-scale study to identify a
relationship between Vitamin D and cognitive impairment in later life.
Dementia is a growing problem for health services everywhere, and people
who have cognitive impairment are at higher risk of going on to develop
dementia. That means identifying ways in which we can reduce levels of
dementia is a key challenge for health services."

Dr Lang added: "For those of us who live in countries where there are
dark winters without much sunlight, like the UK, getting enough Vitamin
D can be a real problem - particularly for older people, who absorb less
Vitamin D from sunlight. One way to address this might be to provide
older adults with Vitamin D supplements. This has been proposed in the
past as a way of improving bone health in older people, but our results
suggest it might also have other benefits. We need to investigate
whether vitamin D supplementation is a cost-effective and low-risk way
of reducing older people's risks of developing cognitive impairment and
dementia." 

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