A NUTRITIONAL drink with a combination of essential fatty acids and vitamins may offer some protection against symptoms associated with Alzheimer’s disease, it is claimed.

The product, Souvenaid, was tested in a trial involving 311 patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), a memory loss condition known to be a pre-cursor of Alzheimer’s.

Taking the supplement every day for two years led to a “significant stabilisation” of everyday thinking performance and reduced brain shrinkage, said the study authors.

However it was no better than a placebo drink at preventing patients from going on to develop Alzheimer’s, leading a number of experts to warn the results should be treated with caution.The patients, from Finland, Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden, were randomly assigned either the supplement or the placebo without knowing what they were getting.

It showed that taking Souvenaid reduced a measure of how badly a person is able to cope with everyday tasks such as handling financial transactions and remembering major events by 45 per cent.

Brain shrinkage in the hippocampus, a brain region vital to memory, was 26 per cent less in patients given the supplement.

Trial co-ordinator Professor Tobias Hartmann, from Saarland University in Germany, said: “While this nutritional intervention is not a cure for Alzheimer’s, it effectively shows that the earlier in the disease process we intervene, the greater the advantage for the patient.”