Blood inflammation would be an early marker of Alzheimer’s diseaseaccording to the results of a study published in the medical journal Neurology.
Researchers from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore in the United States analyzed the levels of five blood markers of inflammation, including the white blood cell count, of 1,633 people with an average age of 53 years. 24 years later, the participants took language, memory and brain scan tests to measure the volume of several brain areas that are biomarkers of Alzheimer’s disease.
The results of the study showed that individuals aged 40 to 60 who display blood inflammation are more at risk as they age of seeing their brain volume decrease, particularly in areas impacted by Alzheimer’s disease.
People with high levels of three or more inflammatory biomarkers showed an average of 5% reduction in the volume of their hippocampus and other brain areas involved in inflammation. Alzheimer’s disease.
Participants without signs of inflammation performed better on the memory test, with an average of about 5.5 words retained out of ten, compared to five for volunteers with at least three high biomarkers of inflammation.
This research also reveals that a single increase in one of the five biomarkers in middle age caused the same effects in older age, from a mutation in the APOE gene that increases the risk of Alzheimer’s.
“These results suggest that inflammation in middle age may contribute to early brain changes related to Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia,” says Dr. Keenan Walker of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland, lead author of the work published in the American medical journal Neurology.
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