Living your best life at 35, while neglecting cholesterol and glucose levels, may increase your risk of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) later in life. Lower HDL (high-density cholesterol) and high triglyceride levels detected in blood as early as age 35 are connected with a higher risk of Alzheimer’s disease several decades later, according to researchers from Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM). They also discovered that high blood glucose levels assessed between the ages of 51 and 60 are linked to an increased risk of Alzheimer’s disease in the future.
Alzheimer’s disease causes and treatments continue to elude researchers. As the number of adults in the United States living with Alzheimer’s disease exceeds six million, more families are having their lives disrupted by this disease. Over 16 million people give unpaid care for an adult with Alzheimer’s disease.
Some evidence suggests that lifestyle decisions, such as nutrition and physical activity, may have a role in the disease’s development. Another field of research that is closely related to this one reveals a possible link between type 2 diabetes and Alzheimer’s disease. Experts are still investigating the possibility that Alzheimer’s disease is a type of diabetes.
These findings show for the first time that cardiovascular risk factors, including HDL, which has not been consistently reported as a strong risk factor for AD, contribute to future risk of AD starting as early as age 35.
Xiaoling Zhang
“While our findings confirm previous studies that linked blood cholesterol and glucose levels with future risk of Alzheimer’s disease, we have demonstrated for the first time that these associations extend much earlier in life than previously thought,” says senior author Lindsay A. Farrer, PhD, chief of biomedical genetics at BUSM.
The researchers believe that, whereas high LDL has been consistently linked to an increased risk of AD in many prior studies, the association between HDL and AD has been unclear, possibly because most studies exploring these relationships were conducted in people aged 55 and older at the start.
This study used data from Framingham Heart Study individuals who were assessed at roughly four-year intervals for the majority of their adult lives. Correlations of Alzheimer’s disease with various recognized risk factors for cardiovascular disease and diabetes (including HDL, LDL, triglycerides, glucose, blood pressure, smoking, and BMI) were assessed at each exam and during three age periods during adulthood (35-50, 51-60, 61-70).
The researchers discovered that lower HDL (the good cholesterol) levels are predictive of AD in early (35-50 years) and middle (51-60 years) adulthood, and that high glucose levels in the blood (a precursor to diabetes) in mid-adulthood are also predictive of AD. “These findings show for the first time that cardiovascular risk factors, including HDL, which has not been consistently reported as a strong risk factor for AD, contribute to future risk of AD starting as early as age 35,” says first and corresponding author Xiaoling Zhang, MD, Ph.D., assistant professor of medicine at BUSM.
According to the experts, beginning to control these risk factors in early adulthood can reduce one’s chance of cardiovascular illness, diabetes, and Alzheimer’s disease. “Interventions aimed at cholesterol and glucose management beginning in early adulthood can assist maximize cognitive health later in life,” Farrer says.
Farrer also notes that “the unique design and mission of the Framingham Heart Study, which is a multi-generation, community-based, prospective health study that began in 1948, allowed us to link Alzheimer’s to risk factors for heart disease and diabetes measured much earlier in life than possible in most other studies of cognitive decline and dementia.”
The researchers discovered that participants with elevated LDL levels were more likely to have early-onset Alzheimer’s disease than patients with lower cholesterol levels after evaluating blood samples. This remained true even after the researchers adjusted for instances with the APOE mutation, implying that cholesterol may be a risk factor for the condition regardless of whether the troublesome APOE gene variant is present.
These findings have been published online in Alzheimers & Dementia: The Journal of the Alzheimer’s Association.
