Can Folic Acid Levels Really Regulate Dementia In Men And Women Over 50?

Some experts are suggesting that men and women over 50 should decrease their intake of folate or folic acids to below the Recommended Daily Allowance, or RDA for short, levels.


But, is the reduction of folic acids to below RDA levels really sound advice?

The answer is "probably not" and to understand why you can start by looking at a study of dementia in the elderly that was published recently in the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry.

In this study scientists looked at 518 people over the age of 65. At the start of the study and again at the end of the study they measured the levels of folic acid, vitamin B12 and homocysteine. Then they followed the people in the study for two full years.

The findings by the scientists at the end of the study were really interesting; forty-five people had developed dementia. Of these, thirty-four had Alzheimer's disease, 7 had vascular dementia, and four had "other" types of dementia. As expected, dementia was more likely in those who were older, relatively poorly educated, inactive, and had deposits of a protein called ApoE. For those who do not know, ApoE is a protein which combines with fats (lipids) in the body to form molecules called lipoproteins. Lipoproteins are responsible for packaging cholesterol and other fats and carrying them through the bloodstream.

From these findings, there is a really striking point in that those people who had low blood levels of folic acid at the beginning of the study were almost 3.5 times more likely to develop dementia! Now this was a relatively small study and it would be fairly easy to ignore except that there are at least four or five other studies over the past few years that have come to the same conclusion.

Due to this published study and other research, it now appears to be fairly clear that folic acid deficiency in people over 65 predisposes them to dementia, so it makes absolutely no sense to recommend that men and women over 50 get less than the RDA level of folic acid in their diet.

As one may guess, there is a lot of scientific deliberation that goes into setting the Recommended Daily Allowance levels for vitamins and minerals. So, one should be very wary of any recommendations that one should take single nutrients at levels far above the RDA. But, also one should be wary of recommendations to purposely consume any nutrient at levels below the RDA.