Summary by Ludmila Kucikova, reviewed by Dr Jon Wood and a dementia lay panel
Background:
Having specific genes and lifestyles can increase the chances of developing dementia. Because changes to the brain happen years before people show symptoms of dementia, it is important to study brain changes related to dementia as early as possible. This leads researchers to sometimes look at relatively young individuals and search for any dementia-related signs in those who have risk factors. For example, previous research found that people with specific Alzheimer’s disease-related genes have a different shape of some brain areas than people without these genes
The authors propose that oestradiol causes autophagy which promotes clearing of tau in nerve cells. The study aims to investigate how oestradiol may regulate autophagy and how this may be used as a possible strategy for treating or preventing the disease.
What did the authors do and how did they do it?
Currently, it is not possible to cure dementia, but some scientific studies show that preventing, or at least delaying, its start is possible. This can be done by some lifestyle changes that could eliminate risk factors such as smoking or having an unhealthy weight. By making those changes we not only take care of our physical health, but we also take care of our brain health. This could potentially also help with reducing the chances of developing dementia. But other elements also contribute to the chances of developing dementia, for example specific genes. Finding the potential relationship between those lifestyle changes and genes and how this relationship translates to brain-related changes is crucial in finding a key to preventing dementia.
What are the results?
The authors took information from the UK Biobank, which is the biggest database containing health care information and brain scans in the UK. In this study, they investigated the relationship between the lifestyle, brain structure and genes of 25,894 individuals aged 37 to 73 years.
At first, they focused on lifestyle factors. They looked at the habits of individuals such as smoking, diet, meat intake, alcohol consumption, regular physical activity and so on. Taking all this information together, they created an indicator of how healthy the lifestyle of each person was. Then, they did the same for a genetic combination of each person, which served as an indicator of genetic risks of developing Alzheimer’s Disease.
After obtaining both indicators – of participants’ healthy lifestyle and of participants’ genetic risk, the authors compared those indicators with the brain structure. This was done to find any potential relationship between lifestyle, genes, and brain shape.
What are the results?
The results showed that people aged over 60 who had a higher genetic risk of developing Alzheimer’s had changes in the brain structures. People below the age of 60 did not show these changes to brain sizes and shapes regardless of their genetic risk. There was also a positive relationship between a healthy lifestyle and brain changes across all ages and genetic risk groups. This shows that a healthy lifestyle can play a role as a protection, not only for our physical health, but also for our brain health. Such protection is very important for every person regardless of their potential risk of developing dementia.
What do the findings mean going forward for people with the disease?
This study does not target people already living with dementia. Instead, it focuses on people who might have a potential risk of developing dementia later in their lives. It does so by studying links between lifestyle, genetic risk factors of Alzheimer’s Disease, and brain changes. This is extremely important in preventative efforts. That is because when we talk about a healthy lifestyle, we often tend to only think about our physical fitness and health. This study shows that a healthy lifestyle can help with the protection of the brain as well.
This study can be found at www….
https://doi.org/10.3390/nu14193907
Paper title
Healthy Lifestyle, Genetic Risk and Brain Health: A Gene-Environment Interaction Study in the UK Biobank.
Author list
Mulugeta, A., Navale, S. S., Lumsden, A. L., Llewellyn, D. J., & Hyppönen, E.
Publication details including date of publication.
Mulugeta, A., Navale, S. S., Lumsden, A. L., Llewellyn, D. J., & Hyppönen, E. (2022). Healthy Lifestyle, Genetic Risk and Brain Health: A Gene-Environment Interaction Study in the UK Biobank. Nutrients, 14(19), 3907. Published: 21/09/2022