Protect your brain, start with vitamin E: Nutritional discoveries behind Parkinson's disease

As people age, more and more people are beginning to pay attention to brain health, especially how to prevent neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinson's disease. Parkinson's disease (PD) is a chronic neurological disease that is more common in the elderly. There is currently no cure, but if it can be identified and intervened early, it is possible to slow its development.

In recent years, scientists have found that some dietary nutrients, especially vitamin E, which has antioxidant effects, may play a positive role in preventing Parkinson's disease. What is going on? Let's take a look.

Why is Parkinson's disease becoming more and more common?

Parkinson's disease is a chronic, progressive neurological disease that affects millions of people worldwide. Data shows that about 1% of people over 60 years old are troubled by it. Due to the obvious trend of aging of the global population, the prevalence of Parkinson's disease is expected to double in the next 20 years.

The occurrence of Parkinson's disease is mainly related to the reduction of "dopamine neurons" in the brain and the accumulation of abnormal proteins. Behind these phenomena, there are often problems such as oxidative stress, inflammatory response and mitochondrial dysfunction.

Oxidative stress is the "culprit" behind the scenes, and vitamin E may be a protective shield

In the brain, dopamine metabolism produces a large number of "oxygen free radicals". These harmful molecules attack nerve cells, causing cell function to decline or even die. This process is called "oxidative stress".

Vitamin E is a natural antioxidant that can effectively neutralize free radicals, thereby protecting nerve cells from damage. It is mainly found in red blood cell membranes and plasma and is an important member of the human body's antioxidant system. Therefore, researchers speculate that vitamin E may help slow the occurrence of Parkinson's disease.

What exactly is vitamin E?

Vitamin E is not a single substance, but a class of fat-soluble antioxidant nutrients, mainly composed of tocopherol (TP) and tocotrienol (TT).

Its main functions include:

• Remove free radicals and reduce oxidative damage;
• Increase the activity of antioxidant enzymes;
• Regulate immune system function and reduce chronic inflammation.

Studies have shown that Parkinson's patients generally have low levels of vitamin E; and people with higher vitamin E levels have a relatively lower risk of Parkinson's disease, which provides initial clues to its preventive potential.

Eat more, get less sick? Data tells you the truth

To further verify this association, scientists analyzed data from 13,340 subjects between 2009 and 2018 to investigate the relationship between their dietary vitamin E intake and Parkinson's disease.

The results showed that:

• The higher the vitamin E intake, the lower the risk of Parkinson's disease;
• This relationship is particularly significant in people aged 40-50 and over 60;
• There is a linear relationship between the two: that is, the more you eat, the lower the risk, and there is no upper limit of "eating more is ineffective".
• These findings provide strong evidence that "vitamin E has a neuroprotective effect".

Vitamin E may be a part of the defense against Parkinson's disease

In summary, more and more studies have found that vitamin E intake is negatively correlated with the risk of Parkinson's disease.

Although we cannot say that vitamin E can "cure" Parkinson's disease, as a safe and widely present nutrient in food, its potential in disease prevention deserves further attention.