In recent years, the importance of Vitamin D for human health has become far more evident than previously thought. Historically, Vitamin D deficiency has been associated primarily with bone related conditions. During the past 10 years, additional biomedical information has shown that Vitamin D deficiency is linked to cardiovascular disease, infectious diseases, auto immune diseases and cancer. Another human disease has been added to the list.
In a recent study entitled “Vitamin D and the risk of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease” published in Neurology; an international group of scientists led by Dr. David Llewellyn from the University of Exeter Medical School reported that moderate to severe vitamin D deficiency in adults significantly increases the likelihood of developing dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. The study was conducted with 1,658 elderly ambulatory adults free from dementia, cardiovascular disease and stroke. Conclusions of the study are that adults with moderate deficiency in Vitamin D (>25 to <50nmol/L) had a 53% higher risk of dementia; this risk increased to 125% for individuals with severe (<25nmol/L) deficiency. Vitamin D levels above 50 nmol/L are appropriate for good grain health.
Alzheimer’s research has seen a number of exciting breakthroughs recently, including evidence that Alzheimer’s may be linked to epigenetic modifications. Automated Vitamin D Liquid-Liquid extraction workstations are playing very important roles to accelerate the research in this area. We look forward to more exciting breakthroughs in these areas closely related to the work we do at Aurora.