Researchers looked into the impact of varying triglyceride and cholesterol levels on dementia risk.
Clinicians may be able to screen patients for dementia risk and maybe stop or delay the start of the disease by looking at the relationship between blood lipids and dementia risk, says a US study. The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute provided funding for the study.
To evaluate whether there is a connection between cholesterol levels and the risk of dementia, researchers recently examined medical records.
Investigators discovered that those with the highest fluctuation in triglyceride and cholesterol had a considerably higher risk of dementia than those with the lowest variability.
Variable cholesterol and dementia risk
According to new research published in the online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology, older people who have fluctuating levels of cholesterol and triglycerides may have a higher risk of Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias.
Although the study discovered a connection, it does not conclusively show that varying triglyceride and cholesterol levels result in dementia compred to steady levels.
Scientists found 11,571 adults aged 60 or older who had not previously been given a dementia or Alzheimer’s disease diagnosis using health care data. In the five years before to the study’s start, researchers examined participants’ measurements of total cholesterol, triglycerides, low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL), and high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL) on at least three different days.
Afterward, subjects were sorted into five equal groups by the researchers depending on how much the measurements varied. The highest group experienced the most variance over time, while the lowest group experienced the least.
Following the participants lasted an average of 13 years. 2,473 persons acquired Alzheimer’s disease or another type of dementia during that time.
Upon controlling for characteristics such as sex, race, education, and lipid-lowering medicines, researchers discovered that people with the highest total cholesterol had a 19% greater risk of dementia compared to those with the lowest total cholesterol. Compared to 483 of the 2,311 individuals in the lowest group, 515 of the 2,311 in the highest group experienced dementia. Triglyceride risk was 23% higher for those in the top category.
Variations in LDL and HDL levels and a higher risk of dementia have not been linked, according to research.
The study was limited by the fact that researchers did not distinguish between the various types of dementia and instead looked at Alzheimer’s disease and associated dementias as a whole.
