Vitamin E: A Miracle Brain Food

Vitamin E is a very multi-talented nutrient that aids a healthy mind. As an antioxidant, vitamin E helps minimize free-radical damage. Since it is fat soluble, it is stored in the fatty parts of your cell membranes; thus, it is uniquely capable of preventing the fat molecules so abundant in brain tissue from turning rancid. Vitamin E protects both the fatty outer membrane and inner membrane of your nerve cells, thereby increasing your brain's ability to transmit messages from cell to cell, and create energy within the cells.

Vitamin E also reduces free-radical damage to your artery walls, helping to protect you against cardiovascular disease and its choking effect on blood flow to the brain. Numerous studies show that vitamin E supplements reduce the risk of stroke by 53 percent. It also reduces the inflammatory effects of pollution toxins, allergies, and infections, which can eventually reach the brain and wreak havoc there.

Autopsies have given us visible evidence that vitamin E deficiencies cause the delicate axons of nerves to degenerate. MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) studies show that low levels of vitamin E in the blood are associated with brain damage due to impaired blood vessels in the brain or free-radical assault. In these studies, subjects ranged in age from forty-five to seventy-five, and those with the lowest levels of vitamin E had seven times the damage of those with the highest levels. An amazing study of 341 patients with Alzheimer's showed that 1,000 IU of vitamin E slowed the progression of the disease in more than half the people who took it - the vitamin had even better results than the Alzheimer drug it was being compared to. In a Chicago study of 633 people sixty-five years or older, ninety-one people developed Alzheimer's. But none of the twenty-seven people who were taking vitamin E supplements (200-800 IU per day) developed it. Statistically, researchers would have expected four of them (15 percent) to have developed the disease by, the end of the four-year study.

It's no wonder so many brain researchers are taking vitamin E themselves. And it's no wonder that the American Institute on Aging believes vitamin E shows such promise as a brain saver that it has launched a study to investigate its effects. The study involves 720 Americans aged fifty-five to ninety who have what is called mild cognitive impairment (MCI); the study is designed to determine if vitamin E will delay further memory loss and prevent or delay Alzheimer's in these people. About 75 percent of those with MCI are expected to progress to Alzheimer's. Even if vitamin E supplements only cut this rate in half, it will be a significant step toward reining in the occurrence of this devastating disease. The best food sources for vitamin E are cold-pressed vegetable oils, whole grains, nuts, dark green leafy vegetables, and legumes.


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