Most seniors may suffer from some degree of vitamin D deficiency, according to a study from researchers at University of California at Davis and Rutgers University. For the study the researchers surveyed 400 men and women with an average age of 76 in either good health or with mild cognitive impairment.
They found that nearly all of the participants showed low levels of vitamin D with 26 percent displaying a deficiency and 35 percent show what they classified as insufficiency.
"This work, and that of others, suggests that there is enough evidence to recommend that people in their 60s and older discuss taking a daily vitamin D supplement with their physicians," says Joshua Miller of Rutgers. "Even if doing so proves to not be effective, there's still very low health risk to doing it."
Charles DeCarli, director of the Alzheimer's Disease Center at UC Davis adds, "We expected to see declines in individuals with low vitamin D status. What was unexpected was how profoundly and rapidly [low vitamin D] impacts cognition."
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