High cholesterol intake & eggs don't increase dementia risk

A large, long-running Finnish study looking at the dietary habits of 2,497 men aged 42-60 has found that a high intake of dietary cholesterol was not associated with the risk of dementia or Alzheimer's disease, even among carriers of the ‘Alzheimer’s gene’ APOE4.

Previous research has found that the effect of dietary cholesterol on serum cholesterol levels is more visible in carriers of APOE4. In Finland, the prevalence of the APOE4 gene variant is exceptionally high and approximately a third of the population are carriers.

The consumption of eggs was not only not associated with an increased risk of dementia or Alzheimer's, but on the contrary, was associated with better cognitive performance on some tests.

The highest level of average daily dietary cholesterol intake was 520 mg and these participants consumed an average of one egg per day.

Reference: 

Ylilauri, M.P.T. et al. 2017. Association of dietary cholesterol and egg intakes with risk of incident dementia or Alzheimer's disease: The Kuopio Ischaemic Heart Disease Risk Factor Study. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition; First published online January 4, 2017. doi: 10.3945/ajcn.116.146753 http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/early/2017/01/04/ajcn.116.146753.abstract?papetoc

Related News

A finding that free radicals promote longevity in the roundworm challenges the theory that free radicals (oxidants) are damaging and cause aging.

A study involving 614 patients with type 2 diabetes (mean age 62) has found that longer duration of diabetes was associated with more brain volume loss, particularly in the gray matter.

Type 2 diabetes greatly increases a person's risk of developing cardiovascular disease, but a new study shows that cardiovascular risk factors such as elevated blood pressure and cholesterol levels differ significantly between men and women with diabetes.

A mouse study has found that introduction of oral bacteria into the bloodstream increased risk factors for atherosclerotic heart disease, including cholesterol and inflammation, suggesting that the same bacteria that cause gum disease also promotes heart disease.

The issue of the effect of menopause on women’s cognition, and whether hormone therapy helps older women fight cognitive decline and dementia, has been a murky one. Increasing evidence suggests that the timing and type of therapy is critical.

A new study adds more support to the idea that the increasing difficulty in learning new information and skills that most of us experience as we age is not down to any difficulty in acquiring new information, but rests on the interference from all the old information.

Being a woman of a certain age, I generally take notice of research into the effects of menopause on cognition.

Problems with myelin — demyelination (seen most dramatically in MS, but also in other forms of neurodegeneration, including normal

Cancer survivors who underwent chemotherapy often suffer long-term cognitive problems. Until now, most research has been occupied with establishing that this is in fact the case, and studies investigating how to help have been rare.

I’ve reported before on the growing evidence that metabolic syndrome in middle and old age is linked to greater risk of cognitive impairment in old age and faster decline.

Pages

Subscribe to Latest newsSubscribe to Latest newsSubscribe to Latest health newsSubscribe to Latest news