Vitamin E may boost memory in older people - study

Following a vitamin E supplemented diet may help improve older people's learning and memory functions, an animal model study suggests.

The study led by Takatsu H and colleagues from Shibaura Institute of Technology in Tokyo, Japan showed aged rats given a vitamin e supplemented diet drastically improved their aging-related cognitive impairment such as loss of memory and learning ability.

In the study, the researchers trained normal aged rats to find a platform in the water maze apparatus, which was used to test the rats' learning and memory functions. 

Normal rats without vitamin E in their diet had a hard time finding the location while those supplemented with vitamin E learned to find the place at a marked speed.

After the animals were trained to have the maximum learning ability, they were kept in a normal atmosphere for two days without any further training and then their memory was assessed using the same apparatus.

The vitamin e supplemented rats showed great retention of their maximum memory while the normal aged rats without vitamin E supplemented only retained 40 percent of their memory, the researchers reported.

Pyrroloquinoline quinone (PQQ), which can be called a new vitamin B, was also found to have a similar effect on memory and learning ability to that of vitamin E in the aged rats.

The researchers concluded that vitamin E may improve aging-induced cognitive deficit.

PQQ is found high in a variety of foods including parsley (34 ng/g), kiwi fruit (27), green tea (30), oolong tea (28), Natto (61), tufu (24), green pepper (28), spinach (22), potato (17), cabbage (16), banana (13), papaya (27), and broad bean (18), according to studies by kumazawa et al. which appear in biochem. biophys. Res Commun. 193, 1-5(1993) and biochem J. 307, 331-333 (1995).

Vitamin E is found high in foods including almonds, hazelnuts, sunflower oil, safflower oil, olive oil, avocado, peanuts, canola oil, corn oil and soybean oil.

By David Liu

Photo from ARS.USDA.GOV