GETTING A B12 BRAIN BOOST

Getting plenty of vitamin B12, already known to be important for healthy nerve cells and red blood cells, may also help protect your brain from shrinking with age.

In a study published in Neurology, British researchers report that older people with low-but still normal-levels of B12 were six times more likely to experience brain atrophy as those with the highest levels. The low B12 group in the study also lost twice as much brain volume on average. Direct MRI brain scans were used to measure the brain volume. Brain shrinkage is usually associated with the development of dementia.

This study suggests that simply adjusting our diets to consume more vitamin B12 through eating meat, eggs, fish, fortified cereals or milk products may be something we can do to prevent brain shrinkage and to perhaps help save our memory.

Here is the difficult part...

Vitamin B12 is naturally found in foods that come from animals, but most Nutrition Facts labels don't list a food's B12 content. This makes it hard to know if you are getting the 6.0 micrograms needed each day.

Also, older adults-up to 30% of those 50 years and older -may have a weaker production of stomach acid that prevents them from absorbing sufficient B12 from food, so their dietary adjustment to boost B12 isn't so simple. Add to this number all the people that take antacids and other medications that work to keep the stomach acid production down. There are, therefore, hundreds of thousands of people that don't absorb enough B12 from their diet to avoid loosing brain volume as they age. Luckily, these individuals are able to absorb the synthetic B12 in fortified foods and dietary supplements. This is an example of a rare case that absorption is better in a synthetic supplement than from natural foods.

It is crucial for people to lead a healthy lifestyle, eat a balanced diet rich in B vitamins and take a daily multi-vitamin containing B12 and antioxidants.

At least 25% of the Daily Value of Vitamin B12 is in:

• Clams, 3 oz. cooked
• Fortified breakfast cereals, 1 cup
• Rainbow Trout, 3 oz cooked
• Salmon, 3 oz. cooked
• Lean top sirloin, 3 oz, broiled
• Plain, skim yogurt, 1 cup