New research from The Netherlands and the UK shows that magnesium intake, which is essential for proper brain function, can be increased in elderly people with dementia.
The research, published online this week in Neurology, shows that people who consume a diet rich in magnesium have lower levels of the disease-causing stress hormone cortisol and better brain health than those who don’t.
The researchers studied 2,814 people with moderate to severe Alzheimer’s disease and 1,742 healthy people.
They found that the average magnesium intake in those who did not have the disease was 4.9 grams per day, or about 10 milligrams of magnesium per day.
That’s about twice the recommended daily intake of 1,200 milligram.
It also significantly increased the magnesium content of the elderly.
A study published earlier this year in The Lancet found that higher magnesium intake was linked to reduced stress and reduced symptoms of depression in people with Alzheimer’s.
The study showed that people with mild dementia and mild Alzheimer’s were also less likely to have elevated cortisol levels and less likely than those with mild Alzheimer, or mild dementia, to have depression and anxiety symptoms.
“The data shows that increasing magnesium intake is a critical factor in helping the brain to recover from Alzheimer’s,” study author Dr. Thomas van den Berg, a neuroscientist at Utrecht University in the Netherlands, told The Verge.
“A magnesium intake of 2,000 mg daily can help you cope better with stressful situations.”
More than 2 million people in the U.S. have Alzheimer’s, a disease that causes the brain’s neurons to lose their connections and neurons to become clogged with amyloid plaques, the sticky, sticky protein that forms when cells break down.
The disease affects about 20 million Americans and costs about $60 billion a year.
