Antioxidant vitamin intake and risk of Alzheimer disease

The generation of oxygen free radicals is involved in the pathogenesis of Alzheimer disease (AD).

To determine whether the intake of antioxidant vitamins decreases the risk of AD.

We investigated the relationship between AD and the intake of carotenes, vitamin C, and vitamin E in 980 elderly subjects in the Washington Heights-Inwood Columbia Aging Project who were free of dementia at baseline and were followed for a mean time of 4 years. Semiquantitative food frequency questionnaires were administered between baseline and the first follow-up visit. Cox proportional hazards regression models were conducted with quartiles of each vitamin intake as the exposure of interest and incident AD as the outcome, adjusted for age, level of education, sex, APOE epsilon4 status, ethnicity, and smoking.

There were 242 incident cases of AD in 4,023 person-years of follow-up (6 per 100 person-years). Intake of carotenes and vitamin C, or vitamin E in supplemental or dietary (nonsupplemental) form or in both forms, was not related to a decreased risk of AD. Trend tests for the association between quartiles of total intake of vitamins C and E also were not significant.

Neither dietary, supplemental, nor total intake of carotenes and vitamins C and E was associated with a decreased risk of AD in this study.