Aging Pets

When pets age they may become confused and demented. Will giving senior pets vitamins help prevent aging and dementia?

There have been human studies that investigated whether supplementing with B vitamins and folate improved cognition and cardiac health, but they did not. Scientists expected that because folate and the B vitamins lower homocysteine levels, they would improve seniors’ health. Homocysteine stiffens arteries and promotes clogging so that those with higher homocysteine levels are more likely to experience dementia, Alzheimer’s disease, and heart attacks. Thus, it would appear that lowering homocysteine levels would help prevent dementia and heart attacks. Unfortunately daily pills containing 1,000 micrograms of folate, 500 micrograms of B-12 and 10 milligrams of B-6 did not improve the seniors’ health.

These results are not too surprising. Health does not come from a pill. It sounds so scientific to formulate vitamins with precise levels of different components, 500 micrograms of this, 10 milligrams of that, but our bodies, and those of our pets, did not evolve taking pills. Whole foods are more likely to help pets of any age.

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