B vitamines tegen migraine en blindheid*
Uit twee studies blijkt dat B vitamines goed kunnen helpen tegen migraine en tegen
macula degeneratie. In een kleine Australische studie blijkt dat dagelijks een supplement van
B vitamines en extra foliumzuur binnen een half jaar duidelijke verbeteringen geven bij migraine. De frequentie was flink lager zo ook de heftigheid. In de tweede studie kregen ruim 5.400 vrouwen met een hartprobleem of tenminste 3 risicofactoren hiervoor of een combinatie van verschillende vitamines B of een placebo en dat zeven jaar lang. Na 7 jaar hadden de vrouwen met de extra vitamines tot wel 41% minder kans op macula degeneratie dan de vrouwen uit de placebo groep. Dagelijks kregen de vrouwen in de vitaminegroep: 2,5 mg
foliumzuur, 50 mg vitamine B6 (pyridoxine hydrochloride) en 1 mg vitamine
B12 (cyanocobalamin).
Vitamin pills found to reduce migraines
Migraines can be a headache to treat, says an Australian professor who has identified simple vitamin supplements that can offer relief.
Professor Lyn Griffiths put 50 long-term migraine sufferers on a six-month course of vitamin B and folate supplements and said the results were very positive.
Study participants reported a "drastic improvement in headache frequency, pain severity and associated disability", said Prof Griffiths of Griffith University's Genomics Research Centre (GRC).
"Current treatments for migraine are not always effective and can be expensive and cause adverse effects," Prof Griffiths says.
"The success of our trial ... has shown that safe, inexpensive vitamin supplements can treat migraine patients."
The trial followed earlier work by the GRC which had identified a gene, known as MTHFR, which is known to make people susceptible to migraines when it has a mutation or dysfunction.
This results in heightened levels of the amino acid homocysteine, which is also known to cause an increased risk of stroke and other coronary diseases.
"The recent trial was founded on the theory that vitamin B supplements and folic acid will reduce the homocysteine and in turn, improve migraine symptoms," Prof Griffiths says.
"We are now going to undertake a more extensive trial ... to find out the best dosage of vitamin supplements for individuals as this may vary depending on a patient's genetic profile."
About 12 per cent of the Australian population is thought to suffer from migraines - a debilitating condition which involves severe headaches, nausea and
vomiting.
Vitamin B And Folic Acid May Reduce Risk Of Age-Related Vision Loss
Taking a combination of vitamins B6 and B12 and folic acid appears to decrease the risk of age-related macular degeneration in women, according to a report in the Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.
Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is a leading cause of vision loss in older Americans, according to background information in the article. Treatment options exist for those with severe cases of the disease, but the only known prevention method is to avoid smoking. Recent studies have drawn a connection between AMD and blood levels of homocysteine, an amino acid. High levels of homocysteine are associated with dysfunction of the blood vessel lining, whereas treatment with vitamin B6, vitamin B12 and folic acid appears to reduce homocysteine levels and may reverse this blood vessel dysfunction.
William G. Christen, Sc.D., of Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, and colleagues conducted a randomized, double-blind clinical trial involving 5,442 women age 40 and older who already had heart disease or at least three risk factors. Of these, 5,205 did not have AMD at the beginning of the study. In April 1998, these women were randomly assigned to take a placebo or a combination of folic acid (2.5 milligrams per day), pyridoxine hydrochloride (vitamin B6, 50 milligrams per day) and cyanocobalamin (vitamin B12, 1 milligram per day). Participants continued the therapy through July 2005 and were tracked for the development of AMD through November 2005.
Over an average of 7.3 years of treatment and follow-up, 137 new cases of AMD were documented, including 70 cases that were visually significant (resulting in a visual acuity of 20/30 or worse). Of these, 55 AMD cases, 26 visually significant, occurred in the 2,607 women in the active treatment group, whereas 82 of the 2,598 women in the placebo group developed AMD, 44 cases of which were visually significant. Women taking the supplements had a 34 percent lower risk of any AMD and a 41 percent lower risk of visually significant AMD. "The beneficial effect of treatment began to emerge at approximately two years of follow-up and persisted throughout the trial," the authors
write.
"The trial findings reported herein are the strongest evidence to date in support of a possible beneficial effect of folic acid and B vitamin supplements in AMD prevention," the authors write. Because they apply to the early stages of disease development, they appear to represent the first identified way-other than not smoking-to reduce the risk of AMD in individuals at an average risk. "From a public health perspective, this is particularly important because persons with early AMD are at increased risk of developing advanced AMD, the leading cause of severe, irreversible vision loss in older Americans."
Beyond lowering homocysteine levels, potential mechanisms for the effectiveness of B vitamins and folic acid in preventing AMD include antioxidant effects and improved function of blood vessels in the eye, they note.
Arch Intern Med. 2009;169[4]:335-341. (April
2009)
