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Increased Vitamin D Intake May Help Prevent Dementia, New Study Shows

Author:

Morgan Chamberlain

March 02, 2023

Former mbg Supplement Editor

By Morgan Chamberlain

Former mbg Supplement Editor

Morgan Chamberlain is mindbodygreen's former supplement editor. She graduated from Syracuse University with a Bachelor of Science degree in magazine journalism and a minor in nutrition.

Image by Studio Firma / Stocksy

March 02, 2023

New research indicates that one essential vitamin could make all the difference in cognitive decline and brain longevity: vitamin D.

According to a new observational study published in Alzheimer's & Dementia this week, older adults that increased their vitamin D intake were 40% less likely to develop dementia. The study also learned quite a bit about how individual factors (e.g., demographics, genetics, behavior) play into the equation.

The dementia study design.

Researchers evaluated the effects of vitamin D exposure on dementia incidence in 12,388 older adults (average age 71) from the National Alzheimer's Coordinating Center (NACC) data set.

All participants were dementia-free at the baseline evaluation and given one of the following cognitive diagnoses:

Normal cognition
Mild cognitive impairment (MCI)

Additionally, participants were split up into a vitamin-D-exposed group (i.e., individuals that took one of three types of vitamin D supplements—D2, D3, or a combination of vitamin D and calcium—before the baseline exam) and a non-exposed group (i.e., individuals that did not increase their vitamin D intake via supplementation throughout the study).

Can vitamin D exposure predict cognitive decline outcomes?

When looking at demographics, genetics, and myriad other factors, the influence of vitamin D exposure on dementia incidence and survival varied from group to group in interesting ways.

Vitamin D exposure was associated with 40% lower dementia incidence rate than no exposure.
The five-year survival rate for the vitamin D exposure group was also 15% higher than no exposure.
Of the participants that developed dementia over 10 years, 75% had no exposure to vitamin D prior to their diagnosis.
Women were at higher risk of dementia than men but also responded to increased vitamin D intake 23% better (females with vitamin D exposure had 49% lower incidence rate than females with no exposure).
Unsurprisingly, participants with normal cognition at baseline had a lower dementia incidence rate than participants with MCI. However, individuals with MCI in the vitamin D exposure group still had 33% lower incidence than participants with MCI that had no exposure.
The rate was the same in vitamin-D-exposed carriers of the APOE ε4 gene (a biomarker for Alzheimer's disease)—their dementia incidence was 33% lower than carriers that had no exposure.

Overall, increased vitamin D intake was found to have potential for dementia prevention, particularly before the onset of cognitive decline.

The takeaway.

While other studies have found that vitamin D deficiency increases the risk of dementia by one-third and higher brain concentrations of vitamin D are linked to positive cognitive health outcomes, participants' blood serum vitamin levels were not documented in this study. Researchers did not define the amount of vitamin D that each participant in the positive exposure group consumed either, so limited conclusions can be drawn from this observational study.

If you'd like to achieve truly optimal vitamin status to support your cognitive longevity, the most effective way to do so is with a high-potency daily vitamin D supplement to help you reach (and sustain) vitamin D sufficiency. You can find mindbodygreen's top vitamin D supplement recommendations here.