(Press-News.org) Vitamin D insufficiency was associated with faster decline in cognitive functions among a group of ethnically diverse older adults, according to an article published online by JAMA Neurology.
In addition to promoting calcium absorption and bone health, vitamin D may influence all organ systems. Both the vitamin D receptor and the enzyme that converts 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25-OHD) to the active form of the vitamin are expressed in all human organs, including the brain. Thus, research has increasingly examined the association between vitamin D status and a variety of health outcomes, including dementia and age-associated cognitive decline.
Joshua W. Miller, Ph.D., of Rutgers University, New Brunswick, N.J., and coauthors from the University of California, Davis, examined baseline vitamin D status and change in subdomains of cognitive function as measured on assessment scales in an ethnically diverse group of 382 older adults.
Serum (blood) 25-OHD was measured and vitamin D status was defined as follows: deficient was less than 12 ng/mL; insufficient was 12 to less than 20 ng/mL; adequate was 20 to less than 50 ng/mL; and high was 50 ng/mL or higher.
Study participants were an average age of 75.5 years and nearly 62 percent were female, while 41.4 percent of the group was white, 29.6 percent were African American and 25.1 percent were Hispanic. At study enrollment, 17.5 percent of the participants had dementia, 32.7 percent had mild cognitive impairment and 49.5 percent were cognitively normal.
The authors report:
The average 25-OHD level among participants was 19.2 ng/mL, with 26.2 percent of participants being vitamin D deficient and 35.1 percent vitamin D insufficient.
Average 25-OHD levels were lower for African American and Hispanic participants compared with their white counterparts (17.9, 17.2 and 21.7 ng/mL, respectively).
Average 25-OHD levels were lower in the dementia group compared with mild cognitive impairment and cognitively normal groups (16.2, 20.0 and 19.7 ng/mL, respectively.
During an average follow-up of 4.8 years, rates of decline in episodic memory and executive function among vitamin D deficient and vitamin D insufficient participants were greater than those with adequate vitamin D status after adjusting for a variety of patient factors.
Vitamin D status was not significantly associated with decline in semantic memory or visuospatial ability.
The authors note limitations to their study including that they did not directly measure dairy intake, sun exposure or exercise, each of which can influence vitamin D levels.
"Our data support the common occurrence of VitD [vitamin D] insufficiency among older individuals. In addition, these data show that African American and Hispanic individuals are more likely to have VitD insufficiency or deficiency. Independent of race or ethnicity, baseline cognitive ability, and a host of other risk factors, VitD insufficiency was associated with significantly faster declines in both episodic memory and executive function performance, which may correspond to elevated risk for incident AD [Alzheimer disease] dementia. Given that VitD insufficiency is medically correctable, well-designed clinical trials that emphasize enrollment of individuals of nonwhite race/ethnicity with hypovitaminosis D could be useful for testing the effect of VitD replacement on dementia prevention," the study concludes.
INFORMATION:
(JAMA Neurol. Published online September 8, 2015. doi:10.1001/jamaneurol.2015.2115. Available pre-embargo to the media at http://media.jamanetwork.com.)
Editor's Note: This work was supported by a grant from the National Institutes of Health. Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, financial disclosures, funding and support, etc.
Media Advisory: To contact corresponding author Joshua W. Miller, Ph.D., call Ken Branson at 848-932-0580 or email kbranson@ucm.rutgers.edu. A JAMA Report with video and audio content will be posted when the embargo lifts at http://broadcast.jamanetwork.com/ and include broadcast-quality downloadable video and audio files, B-roll, scripts, and other images. Please email JAMAReport@synapticdigital.com with any questions.
To encourage hospitals to improve quality of care, Medicare penalizes those with higher than expected rates of readmission within 30 days of discharge. The logic behind the penalties is that if patients receive high quality care, including proper discharge planning, they should be less likely to end up back in the hospital.
This seems straightforward, but it turns out that the social and clinical characteristics of a hospital's patient population that are not included in Medicare's calculation explain nearly half of the difference in readmission rates between the best- ...
Black children were less likely to receive any pain medication for moderate pain and less likely to receive opioids for severe pain than white children in a study of racial disparities in the pain management of children with appendicitis in emergency departments, according to an article published online by JAMA Pediatrics.
Racial and ethnic differences in the emergency department (ED) management of pain have been described, with lower rates of opioid prescription for black and Hispanic patients than for white patients. However, there are fewer studies in children. Appendicitis ...
The largest population genome sequencing effort to date is published today in Nature. A series of papers describing resources and application of the data is published at the same time in Nature, Nature Genetics, Bioinformatics and Nature Communications.
Rare genetic variants are changes in DNA that are carried only by relatively few people in a population. The UK10K study was designed to explore the contribution of these rare genetic variants to human disease and its risk factors.
"The project has made important new contributions towards describing the role of rare ...
This news release is available in Spanish.
Final OS and subgroup analysis of the pivotal study SAR-3007
First interim results of the Y-IMAGE prospective study showing real-world data for trabectedin in advanced soft tissue sarcoma (STS)
Clinical data of trabectedin in translocated-related sarcomas, and in advanced leiomyosarcomas and liposarcomas
Early clinical studies of PM1183 in combination with paclitaxel or cisplatin show a synergistic activity
Madrid, September 14, 2015: PharmaMar announces that it will show new data from clinical pivotal ...
This news release is available in French. We have known for some years that Alzheimer's disease is characterised by two types of lesions, amyloid plaques and degenerated tau protein. Cholesterol plays an important role in the physiopathology of this disease. Two French research teams (Inserm/CEA/University of Lille/University of Paris-Sud ) have just shown, in a rodent model, that overexpressing an enzyme that can eliminate excess cholesterol from the brain may have a beneficial action on the tau component of the disease, and completely correct it. This is the first ...
WASHINGTON, Sept. 14, 2015 -- It's a condition that turns the lives of millions of Americans upside-down: addiction. Whether it's alcohol, drugs, food or gambling, it can ruin lives. In support of National Recovery Month, which calls attention to substance abuse issues and treatment services, Reactions takes a look at the chemistry behind addiction. Check it out here: https://youtu.be/C6I3CHhBGeQ.
Subscribe to the series at http://bit.ly/ACSReactions, and follow us on Twitter @ACSreactions to be the first to see our latest videos.
INFORMATION:The American Chemical ...
DURHAM, N.C. -- Protected areas not only keep significant swaths of Indonesia's shrinking mangrove habitats intact, but also prevent emissions of carbon dioxide that would have been released had these mangroves been cleared, according to a study in the journal Ecological Economics.
Published online, the analysis examined the success of protected areas between 2000 and 2010, finding that their use has avoided the loss of 14,000 hectares of mangrove habitat.
"This is not a small number," said Daniela Miteva, a postdoctoral researcher at The Nature Conservancy and a Duke ...
Whether you have taken a side or a backseat in the discussion, the "food versus fuel" debate affects us all. Some say growing more biofuel crops today will decrease greenhouse gas emissions, but will make it harder to produce food tomorrow, which has prevented the U.S. from maximizing the potential of environmentally beneficial biofuels.
In a recent article, published by the National Academy of Engineering, University of Illinois' Gutgsell Endowed Chair of Plant Biology and Crop Sciences Steve Long and University of California's Philomathia Professor of Alternative Energy ...
University of Queensland scientists have found a genetic basis for height and body mass differences between European populations.
Queensland Brain Institute researcher Dr Matthew Robinson said the findings could explain why people from northern European countries tended on average to be taller and slimmer than other Europeans.
He said the genes that resulted in greater height correlated strongly with genes that reduced body mass index.
"Our findings give a genetic basis to the stereotype of Scandinavians as being tall and lean," Dr Robinson said.
The study paves ...
Researchers at the Johns Hopkins University have found molecular evidence of how a biochemical process controls the lengths of protective chromosome tips, a potentially significant step in ultimately understanding cancer growth and aging.
In a paper recently published as the cover story in the online journal eLife, biologist David C. Zappulla and graduate student Evan P. Hass show how in baker's yeast cells, two proteins work together to usher a key enzyme to the chromosome tip, the telomere, to restore its length, which diminishes with each round of cell division.
That ...
