How B Vitamins May Prevent Stroke-Study

Info source: 

http://www.fi.edu/learn/brain/proteins.html

How B Vitamins May Prevent Stroke-Study

The head of stroke research at the Wake Forest University School of Medicine, James F. Toole, says the real culprit behind stroke is homocysteine, not cholesterol. Stroke is the third leading cause of death in the U.S. and is a major cause of disability. What's more, stroke prevention may be as simple as taking three B vitamins involved with homocysteine's metabolism.

He is coordinating a large international clinical trial with 57 institutions in North America and Scotland. Since 1997, the Vitamin Intervention for Stroke Prevention (VISP) trial has involved 3,200 participants with high blood levels of homocysteine, who all recently experienced a stroke. They are are being given high or low doses of vitamin B12, B6, and folic acid.7

 

In another study of nearly 500 white and African-American women age 15 to 44, the increased risk for stroke because of homocysteine was similar to that of smoking a pack of cigarettes per day. "We found that younger women who had the highest levels of homocysteine had double the risk of stroke compared to women with lower levels," says Steven J. Kittner, M.D., M.P.H., professor of neurology, epidemiology, and preventive medicine at the University of Maryland School of Medicine.8

Info source :

http://www.fi.edu/learn/brain/proteins.html