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(LifeSiteNews) — New research by a Canadian university shows that the consumption of vitamin D can dramatically help protect against the development of dementia. 

Joint research done over a ten-year period by the University of Calgary’s Hotchkiss Brain Institute in Canada and the University of Exeter in the UK, and published in Alzheimer’s & Dementia: Diagnosis, Assessment & Disease Monitoring peer-reviewed journal on March 2023, has revealed that people who take vitamin D supplements are 40-times less likely to develop dementia.  

“We know that vitamin D has some effects in the brain that could have implications for reducing dementia, however so far, research has yielded conflicting results,” said Professor Zahinoor Ismail of the University of Calgary and University of Exeter, who led the study.  

“Our findings give key insights into groups that might be specifically targeted for vitamin D supplementation. Overall, we found evidence to suggest that earlier supplementation might be particularly beneficial, before the onset of cognitive decline.” 

Prominent online voice, Dr. John Campbell, produced a video on March 13 explaining the study and its findings.

He pointed out that 12,388 people, averaging 71 years old, began the study without dementia, and of that number 2,696 progressed to dementia. Among those that developed dementia, 74.8% of them (2,017) were given no exposure to vitamin D.  

“The gap just goes on increasing,” Campbell said, pointing out on the study’s chart how those who received vitamin D declined at a far slower pace than those who were vitamin D deficient.  

“Vitamin D exposure was associated with significantly longer dementia-free periods of time,” Campbell read from the study.  

“So, it’s an absolutely huge effect from what is essentially an interventional study,” he explained. “There’s no question that the vitamin D here was working really quite dramatically well to prevent the development of dementia.”  

“This is a massive benefit we are seeing.” 

The study took into account age, sex, education, race, cognitive diagnosis, depression, and apolipoprotein E (a gene that makes people more disposed to getting Alzheimer’s), and found that the protective effects of vitamin D were greatest in females, in those with normal cognition, and those were non-carriers of the apolipoprotein. 

Campbell said that while the positive effects of vitamin D have been known, this new study makes a more direct connection between vitamin D depletion and dementia specifically.  

“Now, there’s been known associations in the past with Vitamin D and dementia,” Campbell said. “In other words, people with low vitamin D levels have been known to be getting more dementia. But it wasn’t known whether it was a co-relation or causal.” 

“This shows that its very likely to be a causal co-relation that giving vitamin D protects against dementia,” he said.  

Participants were given D3, D2, and D3 + Calcium. Campbell said he takes 100 mcg of vitamin D3 a day and 100 mcg of vitamin K2.  

Aside from its positive effects on preventing dementia, the effects of vitamin D have also been shown to combat other viruses, including COVID-19.  

As previously reported by LifeSiteNews, a study done by a team of researchers from multiple institutions including Johns Hopkins, the Universities of Michigan and Illinois, and the National Bureau of Economic Research, who observed a pool of U.S. veterans, found that “Vitamin D2 and D3 fills were associated with reductions in COVID-19 infection of 28% and 20%, respectively,” and with decreased mortality by 25% and 33%, respectively. 

Such findings, which echo those of past research, suggest that the toll of the pandemic (more than 1.1 million deaths in the United States as of November 23) could have been mitigated in at least one way far simpler and less burdensome than the policies urged by the federal government and adopted by most states, such as mask mandates and forced lockdowns. 

READ: Vitamin D associated with 25% or more decreased risk of COVID death, study finds 

 

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