A study performed on mice and published in the January 2002 issue of the Journal of Neurochemistry indicates that mice fed folic acid were more resistant to Parkinson’s disease than mice fed a diet deficient in the vitamin. When given a chemical that causes Parkinson’s disease, the group of mice fed the folic acid deficient diet developed severe Parkinson-like symptoms. The mice supplemented with folic acid developed less severe Parkinson symptoms.
The folic acid deficient mice had high levels of homocysteine in the blood and brain. The researchers suspect that the homocysteine was responsible for the damage to the nerve cells in the substantianigra, causing the Parkinson-like symptoms. In the mice fed the folate, the body was able to repair the damaged nerve cells. “This is the first direct evidence that folic acid may have a key role in protecting adult nerve cells against age-related disease,” said Mark Mattson, Ph.D., chief of the NIA’s Laboratory of Neurosciences. “It is clear from this study that a deficiency of this vitamin is associated with increased toxin-induced damage to the dopamine-producing neurons in the mouse brain.”