Dietary Supplements Combat Aging-Related Mental Decline

Two antioxidant dietary supplements — acetyl-l-carnitine and alpha lipoic acid — have been demonstrated to improve the memory, ability to learn and cognitive function of old dogs.

“We’ve shown in some previous animal work that these supplements could improve memory and energy level,” Hagen said. “Now we’re seeing that animals receiving supplements are much more readily able to learn new things as well, even at an advanced age.”

In these tests, the effects of supplementation with these compounds appeared to work fairly quickly, in a matter of days or weeks, the scientists said. Some other studies, however, have required much longer periods of supplementation for various antioxidants to improve cognitive performance.

The scientists speculate that long-term supplementation “may be effective in attenuating age-associated cognitive decline by slowing the rate of mitochondrial decay and cellular aging.” The next challenge, of course, is to see whether these compounds have the same impact on humans.

If you want further reading, the study has been published in the FASEB Journal.