Worldwide impact of lifestyle predictors of dementia prevalence: An eXplainable Artificial Intelligence analysis

Abstract

IntroductionDementia is an umbrella term indicating a group of diseases that affect the cognitive sphere. Dementia is not a mere individual health issue, since its interference with the ability to carry out daily activities entails a series of collateral problems, comprising exclusion of patients from civil rights and welfare, unpaid caregiving work, mostly performed by women, and an additional burden on the public healthcare systems. Thus, gender and wealth inequalities (both among individuals and among countries) tend to amplify the social impact of such a disease. Since at present there is no cure for dementia but only drug treatments to slow down its progress and mitigate the symptoms, it is essential to work on prevention and early diagnosis, identifying the risk factors that increase the probability of its onset. The complex and multifactorial etiology of dementia, resulting from an interplay between genetics and environmental factors, can benefit from a multidisciplinary approach that follows the “One Health” guidelines of the World Health Organization.MethodsIn this work, we apply methods of Artificial Intelligence and complex systems physics to investigate the possibility to predict dementia prevalence throughout world countries from a set of variables concerning individual health, food consumption, substance use and abuse, healthcare system efficiency. The analysis uses publicly available indicator values at a country level, referred to a time window of 26 years.ResultsEmploying methods based on eXplainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI) and complex networks, we identify a group of lifestyle factors, mostly concerning nutrition, that contribute the most to dementia incidence prediction.DiscussionThe proposed approach provides a methodological basis to develop quantitative tools for action patterns against such a disease, which involves issues deeply related with sustainable, such as good health and resposible food consumption.

Detecting the socio-economic drivers of confidence in government with eXplainable Artificial Intelligence

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Artificial Intelligence and Complex Network Approaches Reveal Potential Gene Biomarkers for Hepatocellular Carcinoma

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Alzheimer’s Disease and Green Tea: Epigallocatechin-3-Gallate as a Modulator of Inflammation and Oxidative Stress

“…Ferroptosis is increased in an AD brain due to increased levels of iron, ferririn and transferrin and diminished ferroporter and GPX4 ( 14) that causes neuron necroptotic death and subsequent inflammation (15). EGCG is able to block oxidative stress (16) and, thanks to its chelating activity, it counteracts the accumulation of heavy metals (17) and ferroptosis (18), protecting the brain from all these harmful effects.…”

“…On the other hand, EGCG can promote the activation of HIF-1α (15), inducing the expression of cell survival genes (16). EGCG promotes the production of SAPPα ( 17) and the non-amyloido genic processing of APP (18), generating neuroprotection effects (19).…”

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