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Review
. 2019 Feb 18;20(4):879.
doi: 10.3390/ijms20040879.

The Effectiveness of Vitamin E Treatment in Alzheimer's Disease

Ana Lloret  1 , Daniel Esteve  2 , Paloma Monllor  3 , Ana Cervera-Ferri  4 , Angeles Lloret  5
Affiliations
Review

The Effectiveness of Vitamin E Treatment in Alzheimer's Disease

Ana Lloret et al. Int J Mol Sci. .

Abstract

Vitamin E was proposed as treatment for Alzheimer's disease many years ago. However, the effectiveness of the drug is not clear. Vitamin E is an antioxidant and neuroprotector and it has anti-inflammatory and hypocholesterolemic properties, driving to its importance for brain health. Moreover, the levels of vitamin E in Alzheimer's disease patients are lower than in non-demented controls. Thus, vitamin E could be a good candidate to have beneficial effects against Alzheimer's. However, evidence is consistent with a limited effectiveness of vitamin E in slowing progression of dementia; the information is mixed and inconclusive. The question is why does vitamin E fail to treat Alzheimer's disease? In this paper we review the studies with and without positive results in Alzheimer's disease and we discuss the reasons why vitamin E as treatment sometimes has positive results on cognition but at others, it does not.

Keywords: Alzheimer’s disease; antioxidants; brain health; non-respondents; respondents to vitamin E.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Inhibition of 5-LOX activity by vitamin E. Vitamin E blocks calcium ionophores inducing a reduction in the intracellular calcium levels, triggering the inhibition of 5-LOX activity and inducing the inhibition of the prostaglandins (PGE2). Interleukin 2 (IL-2) levels increase and consequently an immune response.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Vitamin E effects. Vitamin E can act as anti-inflammatory through protein kinase C (PKC) inhibition and has antioxidant and neuroprotection properties through the attack to reactive oxygen species (ROS).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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