Souvenaid “Alzheimer’s Drink” Can Stop Brain from Shrinking, Research Proves
14 Mar 2016 --- A two-year EU-funded trial has revealed that a €4.45 (US$5) medical food in the form of a daily nutritional drink can help conserve memory, the ability to think and perform everyday tasks, as well as reduce brain shrinkage in people with prodromal Alzheimer’s Disease (AD).
Results from the European LipiDiDiet clinical trial were presented as part of a late-breaking presentation at the Advances in Alzheimer’s Therapy (AAT) congress in Athens, Greece.
The multinational researchers showed that people with prodromal AD (the pre-dementia stage of AD) who drank the once-daily nutritional drink had 38 percent less brain shrinkage – particularly in the hippocampal brain area, the part of the brain that helps store short-term memories for long-term retrieval. And for those who started the intervention early (and had mild cognitive impairment, which often precedes full-blown dementia) and consumed it regularly, it can help to conserve memory and the ability to think and perform everyday tasks.
The clinical trial, headed by Professor Hilkka Soininen at the University of Eastern Finland, is part of a large EC project (LipiDiDiet) to explore the therapeutic and preventative impact of nutrition on neuronal and cognitive performance in ageing, AD and vascular dementia. LipiDiDiet is funded by the seventh Framework Programme (FP7) of the European Commission (EC) and coordinated by Professor Tobias Hartmann of Saarland University in Germany.
The study was conducted in a sample aged 55-85 years old from several European countries, including Finland, Sweden, the Netherlands and Germany.
Souvenaid, which was created by Nutricia Advanced Medical Nutrition – part of the Danone company, contains a “Fortasyn Connect” – a specific combination of fatty acids, vitamins and other nutrients which have been shown to boost brain function. It has been designated a Food for Special Medical Purpose (FSMP), clinically proven for the dietary management of early Alzheimer’s disease.
The drink contains a daily dose omega 3 fatty acids equivalent to eating three or four herrings, as well as high doses of Vitamins E, B, B13 and C. Other ingredients include uridine, which is produced by the liver and kidneys and found in breast milk, and choline found in meat, nuts and eggs.
Although it has been on sale since 2013, Souvenaid has never been independently tested to see if it has an effect on cognitive function.
Project coordinator Professor Tobias Hartmann of Saarland University Germany told NutritionInsight why this nutritional drink was used in the trial: “Although promising research has investigated the neuroprotective properties of omega 3 in people with AD, it was found that fish oils alone were not strong enough. Souvenaid had an optimized combination and was more effective in our preceding studies to select the clinical trial study product”.
This is the first time a randomized, double-blind, clinical trial has shown that a nutritional intervention can help to conserve the ability of prodromal AD patients to carry out everyday tasks such as paying bills, or finding their way around, as measured by the Clinical Dementia Rating-Sum of Boxes (CDR-SB) – a combined measure for the ability to think and perform everyday tasks.
Professor Hartmann explained the importance of these findings: “It shows for the first time that a nutritional intervention can have a clear benefit in those with prodromal AD, and that where there is not an approved drug available, a combination of nutrients can be used to slow down symptoms.”
The study did not find a significant benefit in broad cognitive function (the study primary endpoint) in people who had Alzheimer’s, however. Cognitive decline over the study period was less than originally expected when it was designed ten years ago, so differences found between the two groups were too small to be statistically significant. This is the most likely reason the primary endpoint was not met.
Souvenaid is backed by 16 years of extensive research, based on initial preclinical research by Professor Kiliaan (Radboud University, the Netherlands), by the LipiDiet project, coordinated by Professor Hartmann (Saarland University, Germany) and funded by the European Union FP5 research programme and by Professor Wurtman (formerly at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA) supported principally by the National Institutes of Health.
Rolf Smeets, Chief Medical Officer of Nutricia Advanced Medical Nutrition told NutritionInsight: “We are very proud to be working with such world class scientists and medical experts. It is an exciting field of scientific research, and we are very proud to be helping patients with such a distressing condition.”
Although over a hundred papers are already available in peer review journals on this project, Professor Hartmann concluded that the aim is to continue to publish even more research to strengthen the aim that a suitable prodromal AD treatment can become available.
by Kerina Tull
