Study supports link between low vitamin D and dementia risk

Being severely deficient in vitamin D is associated with a more than twofold increased risk of developing dementia, a new study has found.1 The study appeared in the journal Neurology, and the lead author was Thomas J Littlejohns of the University of Exeter Medical School in the United Kingdom.

In the study the researchers analysed data from 1658 elderly US residents who had participated in the Cardiovascular Health Study—a prospective, population based study conducted in the 1990s to look at cardiovascular disease risks.

The participants selected for the new analyses had all been ambulatory when they enrolled in the Cardiovascular Health Study, they had been free of dementia, cardiovascular disease, and any history of transient …