title: Relations of vitamin B-12, vitamin B-6, folate, and homocysteine to cognitive performance in the Normative Aging Study.
abstract: We investigated the relations between plasma concentrations of homocysteine and vitamins B-12 and B-6 and folate, and scores from a battery of cognitive tests for 70 male subjects, aged 54-81 y, in the Normative Aging Study. Lower concentrations of vitamin B-12 (P=0.04) and folate (P=0.003) and higher concentrations of homocysteine (P=0.0009 ) were associated with poorer spatial copying skills. Plasma homocysteine was a stronger predictor of spatial copying performance than either vitamin B-12 or folate. The association of homocysteine with spatial copying performance was not explained by clinical diagnoses of vascular disease. Higher concentrations of vitamin B-6 were related to better performance on two measures of memory (P=0.03 and P=0.05). The results suggest that vitamins (and homocysteine) may have differential effects on cognitive abilities. Individual vitamins and homocysteine should be explored further as determinants of patterns of cognitive impairment.
authors.affiliation: Jean Mayer US Department of Agriculture Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University, Boston, MA, USA.
authors.forename: K M
authors.initials: KM
authors.lastname: Riggs
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Spiro
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Tucker
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Rush
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000375:Aging / Q000502:physiology*; D003071:Cognition / Q000502:physiology*; D006710:Homocysteine / Q000097:blood / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008568:Memory / Q000502:physiology; D008875:Middle Aged; D011736:Pyridoxine / Q000097:blood / Q000502:physiology*; D012016:Reference Values; D013028:Space Perception; D014805:Vitamin B 12 / Q000097:blood / Q000502:physiology*
chemical_list: D006710:Homocysteine; D011736:Pyridoxine; D014805:Vitamin B 12