Vitamin E did not preserve thinking abilities, though, and it did no good for patients who took it with another Alzheimer's medication. But those taking vitamin E alone required less help from caregivers — about two fewer hours each day than some others in the study.
"It's not a miracle or, obviously, a cure," said study leader Dr. Maurice Dysken of the Minneapolis VA Health Care System. "The best we can do at this point is slow down the rate of progression."
The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs sponsored the study, published Tuesday by the Journal of the American Medical Association.
No one should rush out and buy vitamin E, several doctors warned. It failed to prevent healthy people from developing dementia or to help those with mild impairment ("pre-Alzheimer's") in other studies, and one suggested it might even be harmful.
Still, many experts cheered the new results after so many recent flops of once-promising drugs.
"This is truly a breakthrough paper and constitutes what we have been working toward for nearly three decades: the first truly disease-modifying intervention for Alzheimer's," said Dr. Sam Gandy of Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York. "I am very enthusiastic about the results."
About 35 million people worldwide have dementia, and Alzheimer's is the most common type. In the U.S., about 5 million have Alzheimer's. There is no cure and current medicines just temporarily ease symptoms.
