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Small But Significant Link Found Between Systemic Inflammation and Future Dementia
Elevated levels of inflammatory biomarkers were associated with increased dementia risk in a population-based cohort study published online in PLOS One.
“In this study, we found associations between higher systemic inflammation levels and risk of being diagnosed with dementia 3 to 11 years later, although the increase in risk is small,” said study corresponding author Krisztina Mekli, PhD, of The University of Manchester in the United Kingdom.
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The exploratory study assessed the association between a composite inflammatory biomarker score, cognitive performance both at the time of inflammatory biomarker measurement and years later, and a future dementia diagnosis using data for 500,000 people from the UK Biobank cohort. Demographic factors, additional health factors, and whether participants had a variant of the APEO gene were accounted for in the analysis.
When researchers compared participants in the highest quartile for inflammatory biomarker levels to the lowest, they found small but significant associations between elevated biomarker levels and worse cognitive performance for 4 out of 5 cognitive measures at baseline and 4 and 13 years later, according to the study. The measures included tasks related to prospective memory, fluid intelligence, reaction time, and numeric memory.
Additionally, the highest biomarker quartile was significantly associated with increased dementia risk compared with the lowest quartile. Researchers reported a hazard ratio of 1.349.
“This association of course does not mean causality,” Dr Mekli said, “therefore further research is needed to understand and evaluate the potential mechanism. In addition, high levels of inflammation might be one of the biomarkers which helps to identify people who have elevated risk of developing dementia in the near future.”
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