BETHESDA, Md. (Sept. 4, 2005) Studying how much longer and "better" mice will live on high doses of vitamin E involves much time and work two years of feeding, testing and studying. But based on earlier results, a joint team from the University of Cadiz, Spain, and the University of Buenos Aires, Argentina, figured the payoff would be worth the effort.

Their just-published paper shows that using vitamin E supplementation physiologically comparable to recent human experiments in Alzheimer's Disease patients, resulted in these major findings:

• male mice showed a 40% increase in median lifespan (to 85 4 weeks from 61 4).

• 17% increase in maximal lifespan (to 136 weeks from 116 weeks).

• increases in the ability to perform tests measuring neuromuscular performance (high-wire tightrope) and cognitive exploratory activity (T-maze); the increases on both tests ranged 9%-24% at 52 weeks, and 28%-45% at 78 weeks of age.

• brain alpha-tocopherol content increased 2.5-fold in male mice taking vitamin E.

• vitamin E supplementation offset various measures of mitochondrial function loss in a range of 37%-66% at the 52- and 78-week test points.

• all results were significant to a greater than 99% confidence level.

The paper "Vitamin E at high doses improves survival, neurological performance and brain mitochondrial function in aging male mice" appears online in the American Journal of Physiology-Regulatory, Integrative and Comparative Physiology, published by the American Physiological Society. Research was by Ana Navarro, Carmen Gomez, Maria-Jesus Sanchez-Pino, Hipolito Gonzalez and Manuel J. Bandez of the University of Cadiz, Spain, and Alejandro D. Boveris and Alberto Boveris of the University of Buenos Aires.

Results seen supporting 'free radical' theory of aging

Alberto Boveris, professor at the University of Buenos Aires, said the results of these extended
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2-Sep-2005

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