Preventing Memory Loss

In old age many of us suffer poor memory and loss of cognitive capabilities.  The overall picture of what's behind these losses is a jumbled jig-saw puzzle.  Medical science does not yet have all of the puzzle pieces.  One part of the picture that most of the brain specialists agree on is that dementia, Alzheimer's disease and shrinkage of the brain (cerebral atrophy) all appear to be interrelated and are all associated with loss of cognitive abilities and memory.

There's been a recent medical study (attached below) that shows a simple vitamin supplementation program can prevent shrinkage of the brain (for those that have elevated levels of homocysteine).  This is very exciting!  I'm looking at starting on this as a preventative treatment as soon as I've researched it a bit further and have had my homocysteine level checked.

1-19-2015 update: I spoke with with my doctor about the above study and he indicated my medical plan would not approve a test to determine my homocysteine levels. I told him that I would just go ahead with the daily regimen of folic acid, B6 and B12 at levels of 800 micrograms, 20 milligrams and 500 micrograms respectively. He said he saw no issues with doing this. I've been following regimen for over 12 months now and my memory as improved considerably!

So, it seems this vitamin regimen goes beyond preventing the loss of memory ability - it can also reverse the loss.

Sources for general information about homocysteine:

•  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homocysteine#Neuropsychiatric_illness
•  http://drbenkim.com/articles-homocysteine.html