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A British study claims to have found the "first glimmer of hope" for those battling with Alzheimer's. Researchers believe that vitamin B supplements could half the rate of brain shrinkage or atrophy and stop memory loss by 500%.

Oxford University researchers studied 168 volunteers suffering from mild memory loss called MCI (mild cognitive impairment) that affects around 16% of people aged over 70 worldwide, and which could degenerate into Alzheimer's within 5 years for almost 50% of the cases.

Half of the volunteers taking part in the 2 years trial were given daily a vitamin tablet containing four times the recommended daily amount of folic acid, 300 times the recommended daily amount of B12 and 15 times the recommended amount of B6, and the other half were given a placebo with no active ingredients.

The results were so dramatic that scientists believe it could be the "first glimmer of hope" for those battling with Alzheimer's. The results indicated that taking high doses of vitamin B every day can reduce brain shrinkage associated with memory loss and dementia by up to 53%.

"This is a very dramatic and striking result. It's much more than we could have predicted. It is our hope that this simple and safe treatment will delay development of Alzheimer's in many people who suffer from mild memory problems", said David Smith of Oxford's department of pharmacology, a co-leader in the trial.

Vitamin B was known to control levels of an amino acid in the blood called homocysteine. When this compound is secreted in the body at high levels is was found to have a link with memory loss and Alzheimer's, thereby researchers decided to study if this vitamin would be good for memory.

For now, this pill is considered to be a drug, not a supplement, because of the extremely high doses, and should not become yet a clinical practice. However, "it sets out important questions for further study and gives new confidence that effective treatments modifying the course of some dementias may be in sight', said professor Paul Matthews, from Imperial College London.