Vitamin D: Dementia vs Parkinson's

Elderly people often have particularly low levels of Vitamin D. And new evidence suggests that those low levels could be linked to Parkinson's disease. It has also been shown that many with dementia also have low levels of Vitamin D

Researchers at the Emory University School of Medicine measured blood levels of the vitamin in 300 patients - a third each with either Parkinson's, Alzheimer's disease or neither.

As expected, insufficient levels of Vitamin D were common in each. But more of the Parkinson's patients (55 percent) had low levels than the Alzheimer's (41 percent) or the healthy controls (36 percent), they write in the current Archives of Neurology.

Moreover, all the participants lived in the South, most were white and most were tested in summer and fall - all factors known to help the skin produce Vitamin D from sunlight.

The findings, the researchers conclude, highlight the importance of...read this story

Thanks to By Don Sapatkin
INQUIRER STAFF WRITER
Philly.com