A number of medical experts have criticised claims by a research team in Waterford that food supplements might slow the progress of Alzheimer's disease.
The research claims to have found that patients who took a combination of fish oil and eye-protective nutrients led to improvements in memory, sight and mood.
The 18-month study - at the Nutrition Centre of Ireland based in Waterford and published in the June edition of the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease (JAD) - examined the effect of nutritional compounds found in common foods such as trout, broccoli and peppers on people with the condition.
Critics say that only thirteen patients with mild to advanced Alzheimer's disease were given supplements for 18 months and their progress assessed.
The new approach to tackling Alzheimer's was pioneered by Dr Alan Howard, inventor of the low-calorie rapid weight loss plan the Cambridge Diet.
Some independent experts reviewing the results published in the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease say they are not impressed.
Naveed Sattar, Professor of Metabolic Medicine at the University of Glasgow is quoted as saying that while any research into Alzheimer's disease is to be welcomed, it was too small a trial and lacked a placebo control, meaning its findings are unlikely to be true.
Dr David Reynolds, chief scientific officer at the charity, Alzheimer's Research in Britain said: "The experimental design of this study makes it hard to draw meaningful conclusions about the effect of these supplements on the symptoms of Alzheimer's... claims about the significance of these findings should be met with caution."
Professor John Nolan, founder of The Nutrition Research Centre Ireland has defended the research, saying 27 patients were involved and that the findings from the exploratory clinical trial have been informed by two decades of research into the study of carotenoid pigments for human function.
He went onto say that the study of 27 patients acknowledges the results were unexpected, and the research was not designed specifically to evaluate functional and cognitive outcomes.
He added that a larger study is currently underway, called Memory Intervention with Nutrition for Dementia (ReMIND), which will use the same formulation and examines specific cognitive and functional assessments, as part of placebo-controlled design.
