Here's one more reason to take your vitamins seriously: Vitamin deficiency may well be associated with depression and dementia in the elderly.
In a study conducted by the National Institute on Aging, disabled women over age 65 with a vitamin B12 deficiency were twice as likely to suffer from depression as those with a full store of the vitamin. The report indicates that 27 percent of the women studied who were severely depressed were deficient in B12, compared to only 17 percent of mildly depressed women, and 15 percent of the more content participants. It's not clear, however, whether taking vitamin B12 will help relieve depression in the elderly, warns Brenda Penninx, an assistant geriatrics professor at the Sticht Center on Aging in North Carolina and the study's lead author.













