Nutrients to Fight Alzheimer's

A new nutrient "cocktail" developed by researchers at MIT may help improve the memory of Alzheimer's patients. The nutrients - uridine, choline and the omega-3 fatty acid DHA plus some B vitamins and antioxidants - boosted verbal memory in patients with mild Alzheimer's in a clinical trial. The investigators suggested that the cocktail works by promoting the growth of new brain connections (synapses). Richard Wurtman, the MIT professor who performed the basic research that lead to the cocktail, found in animal studies that the nutrients increase the number of small outcroppings of neural membranes (called dendritic spines). When these spines come into contact with each other, a new synapse is formed. Patients in the study drank the cocktail or a control beverage daily for 12 weeks. Those who received the nutrients improved significantly compared to the controls: 40 percent of them did better on tests of verbal memory compared to only 24 percent of patients in the control group. In the "cocktail" group those patients with the mildest cases of Alzheimer's did best on the tests. The study was published in the January 2010 issue of Alzheimer's and Dementia.