Get more of this vitamin or your brain’s in danger

A crucial vitamin can keep the brain safe from oxidative damage and prevent brain proteins from disintegrating. But most of us get too little. And our memories are paying the price.

A study by scientists at the University of Kentucky researchers shows our lack of vitamin D is making us vulnerable to brain damage.

“Given that vitamin D deficiency is especially widespread among the elderly, we investigated how during aging from middle-age to old-age how low vitamin D affected the oxidative status of the brain,” says researcher Allan Butterfield, director of the Free Radical Biology in Cancer Core of the Markey Cancer Center at the University of Kentucky. “Adequate vitamin D serum levels are necessary to prevent free radical damage in brain and subsequent deleterious consequences.”

The Kentucky researchers note that other studies have linked low levels of vitamin D with Alzheimer’s disease.

Butterfield recommends having a blood test to check your vitamin D status. If you are lacking in this vitamin, he says, you should eat foods rich in vitamin D (like salmon, sardines and egg yolk), take vitamin D supplements, and/or get at least 10 to15 minutes of sun exposure every day to allow your skin to make vitamin D.