Genetic Factors of Alzheimer’s Disease Modulate How Diet is Associated with Long-Term Cognitive Trajectories: A UK Biobank Study

Abstract

Background: Fluid intelligence (FI) involves abstract problem-solving without prior knowledge. Greater age-related FI decline increases Alzheimer’s disease (AD) risk, and recent studies suggest that certain dietary regimens may influence rates of decline. However, it is uncertain how long-term food consumption affects FI among adults with or without familial history of AD (FH) or APOE4 (ɛ4). Objective: Observe how the total diet is associated with long-term cognition among mid- to late-life populations at-risk and not-at-risk for AD. Methods: Among 1,787 mid-to-late-aged adult UK Biobank participants, 10-year FI trajectories were modeled and regressed onto the total diet based on self-reported intake of 49 whole foods from a Food Frequency Questionnaire (FFQ). Results: Daily cheese intake strongly predicted better FIT scores over time (FH-: β= 0.207, p < 0.001; ɛ4–: β= 0.073, p = 0.008; ɛ4+: β= 0.162, p = 0.001). Alcohol of any type daily also appeared beneficial (ɛ4+: β= 0.101, p = 0.022) and red wine was sometimes additionally protective (FH+: β= 0.100, p = 0.014; ɛ4–: β= 0.59, p = 0.039). Consuming lamb weekly was associated with improved outcomes (FH-: β= 0.066, p = 0.008; ɛ4+: β= 0.097, p = 0.044). Among at risk groups, added salt correlated with decreased performance (FH+: β= –0.114, p = 0.004; ɛ4+: β= –0.121, p = 0.009). Conclusion: Modifying meal plans may help minimize cognitive decline. We observed that added salt may put at-risk individuals at greater risk, but did not observe similar interactions among FH- and AD- individuals. Observations further suggest in risk status-dependent manners that adding cheese and red wine to the diet daily, and lamb on a weekly basis, may also improve long-term cognitive outcomes.

Effects of Diastolic Blood Pressure on Brain Structures and Cognitive Functions in Middle and Old Ages: Longitudinal Analyses

“…As described in the Methods Section, cross-sectional and interventional studies demonstrated the associations of cheese intake in general or cheese of certain types with lower or decline in BP, and meta-analyses demonstrated the associations of cheese intake with measures that are closely relevant to BP, such as stroke risk, arterial stiffness, and blood lipid [16,17,19,20,42]. In addition, using the same UK Biobank data, a greater cheese intake was shown to be associated with a greater longitudinal retention (less decline) in fluid intelligence [43]. We further demonstrated that greater cheese intake is associated with a greater retention of visuospatial memory performance, whereas previous studies failed to show this, possibly due to limited sample size [44].…”

Associations of dairy, meat, and fish intakes with risk of incident dementia and with cognitive performance: the Kuopio Ischaemic Heart Disease Risk Factor Study (KIHD)

“…In a recent case-control study by Filippini et al [32], associations between cheese intake and dementia outcomes were not found. Nonetheless, a beneficial association between cheese intake and cognitive performance is supported in the majority of previous studies [33][34][35][36]. For potential explanations for the better cognitive performance, the probiotic effect of lactid acid bacteria through the gut-brain axis [36], high level of vitamin K2 [36], and role of bioactive compounds [34] and the amino acid tyramine [33] that are high in cheese have been discussed.…”

“…In general, the evidence between dairy intake and dementia outcomes or cognitive performance is incoherent [6,7,37,38] and may be product specific [33][34][35][36]39]. Two systematic reviews have suggested that higher dairy intake may have a beneficial association with cognitive performance [37,38], but it may be limited to Asian populations [38].…”

Evaluating the Causal Effects of Gestational Diabetes Mellitus, Heart Disease, and High Body Mass Index on Maternal Alzheimer’s Disease and Dementia: Multivariable Mendelian Randomization

“…This database comprised data on 10,894,596 dementia-associated SNPs from 26,757 maternal AD dementia cases. In this data, the AD/dementia was mainly defined as the AD dementia syndrome, which belongs to the anamnestic syndrome of hippocampal type, with the relevant decline in memory, executive function, attention, word-finding, spatial cognition ( Karantzoulis and Galvin, 2011 ); ( Klinedinst et al, 2020 ). Besides, the United Kingdom biobank study reported the genetic risk factor rooted in AD dementia, such as apolipoprotein E ε4 allele (APOE4), and a parental family history of AD dementia.…”