EMBARGOED FOR RELEASE UNTIL 4 P.M. ET, WEDNESDAY, JULY 19, 2023
MINNEAPOLIS – Higher levels of vitamin B-related amino acids may be linked to the risk of dementia associated with a certain type of air pollutants called particulate matter, according to a study published in the July 19, 2023, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. The study does not prove that pollution or amino acids cause dementia, but it suggests a possible link among them.
Researchers looked at fine particulate matter, PM2.5, which consists of pollutant particles of less than 2.5 microns in diameter suspended in air. They also looked at two amino acids, methionine and homocysteine. Methionine is an essential amino acid found in foods such as meat, fish, dairy, beans and eggs and is involved in normal brain functions. Homocysteine is an amino acid produced in the cells that can be transformed to methionine through a reaction that requires both vitamin B12 and folate, a nutrient important in red blood cell formation and for healthy cell growth and function.
“Previous studies have found a link between air pollution and dementia risk, but we don’t have a good understanding of the mechanisms through which air pollution impacts the brain,” said study author Giulia Grande, MD, PhD, of the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, Sweden. “In this study, we found that two types of vitamin B-related amino acids played a role in increasing or decreasing the risk of dementia caused by air pollution.”
For the study, over 2,500 adults with an average age of 73 living in central Stockholm were followed for up to 12 years. Of these, 376 people developed dementia.
Participants completed interviews and blood tests, along with questionnaires on physical activity and diet habits.
Researchers then calculated annual average levels of PM2.5 at the home addresses of the participants. The people who developed dementia had an average exposure to PM2.5 pollution of 8.4 micrograms per cubic meter (µg/m3), compared to 8.3 µg/m3 for the people who did not develop dementia. These annual average level of PM2.5 are low compared to the average levels of PM2.5 in the rest of Europe, which is 13.8 μg/m3.
After adjusting for several factors that affect a person’s risk of dementia including age, sex, smoking, and education, researchers found that the risk of dementia increased by 70% for every one µg/m3 increase of PM2.5 exposure during the five years before the start of the study.
Then researchers looked at whether the impact of air pollution exposure on dementia was affected by the amino acids.
Overall, researchers found that about half of the increased risk of dementia due to PM2.5 was due to an interaction between air pollution and high homocysteine levels or low methionine levels.
“Our results indicated that raised homocysteine levels and low methionine values played a role in determining the dementia risk related to air pollution, but also showed that a substantial direct effect of air pollution on dementia exists suggesting that air pollution affects the development of dementia through multiple pathways,” Grande said. “This highlights the need for further research into the exact biological mechanisms behind the brain damage of air pollution.”
A limitation of the study was that it included only the Kungsholmen district of Stockholm, which is small, so comparisons regarding air pollutants were limited.
The study was funded by Swedish Ministry of Health and Social Affairs, Swedish Research Council, Swedish Research Council for Health, Working Life and Welfare and several Swedish foundations.
Learn more about dementia at BrainandLife.org, home of the American Academy of Neurology’s free patient and caregiver magazine focused on the intersection of neurologic disease and brain health. Follow Brain & Life® on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
When posting to social media channels about this research, we encourage you to use the hashtags #Neurology and #AANscience.
The American Academy of Neurology is the world’s largest association of neurologists and neuroscience professionals, with over 40,000 members. The AAN is dedicated to promoting the highest quality patient-centered neurologic care. A neurologist is a doctor with specialized training in diagnosing, treating and managing disorders of the brain and nervous system such as Alzheimer’s disease, stroke, migraine, multiple sclerosis, concussion, Parkinson’s disease and epilepsy.
For more information about the American Academy of Neurology, visit AAN.com or find us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and YouTube.
END
Do certain amino acids modify the risk of dementia linked to air pollution?
2023-07-19
(Press-News.org)
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
CHOP and Penn researchers find behavioral economics strategies can help patients quit smoking after a cancer diagnosis
2023-07-19
Philadelphia, July 19, 2023 – Researchers from Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) and the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania found that cancer patients who continued to smoke after their diagnosis were significantly more likely to receive treatment for tobacco use when “nudges” to provide tobacco treatment were directed at clinicians through the electronic health record. The findings strengthen the case for using behavioral economics, or targeting predictable patterns in human decision-making to overcome ...
Hepatitis cases and heart valve infection deaths tied to early OxyContin marketing
2023-07-19
New Haven, Conn. — Decades after Purdue Pharma began to push physicians to prescribe addictive pain pills, the opioid crisis has been a slow-motion disaster, with overdoses destroying lives and families across the country.
Now, it appears the consequences of those early marketing efforts are even more devastating. In a new study, researchers at the Yale School of Public Health show that infectious disease rates in the United States also climbed as a direct long-term result of the marketing of OxyContin.
By ...
Treatment at the first signs of MS could mean lower risk of disability later
2023-07-19
EMBARGOED FOR RELEASE UNTIL 4 P.M. ET, WEDNESDAY, JULY 19, 2023
MINNEAPOLIS – People who start taking medication soon after the first signs of multiple sclerosis (MS) may have a lower risk of disability later, according to a study published in the July 19, 2023, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.
MS is a disease in which the body’s immune system attacks myelin, the fatty white substance that insulates and protects the nerves. Symptoms of MS may include fatigue, numbness, ...
Teaching robots to teach other robots
2023-07-19
You’re a poker wizard. A friend knows all about French cuisine. Another friend is a Mozart expert.
The three of you get together and share knowledge about your respective expertise. Each of you leaves learning something from the other two.
People learn a lot by sharing and exchanging information. Can computers do the same with other computers—can robots, in effect, teach other robots how to learn by sharing knowledge?
A team of researchers led by computer science Professor Laurent Itti and one of his Ph.D. students, Yunhao Ge, address this question in ...
Molecular biologists identify framework for understanding RNA editing in a disease-causing parasite
2023-07-19
As molecular biologists at Boston University and as husband and wife, Ruslan Afasizhev and Inna Afasizheva, have worked together for decades. Together, they have published dozens of papers on the mechanics of mitochondrial DNA and RNA in a single-celled, disease-causing parasite called Trypanosoma brucei. Now, years of breakthroughs have led to their latest paper published in Science, which provides a detailed look at a mystifying process called RNA editing and could potentially help treat a deadly disease.
In ...
Picturing where wildlands and people meet at a global scale
2023-07-19
Researchers led by a team at the University of Wisconsin–Madison have created the first tool to map and visualize the areas where human settlements and nature meet on a global scale. The tool, which was part of a study recently published in Nature, could improve responses to environmental conflicts like wildfires, the spread of zoonotic diseases and loss of ecosystem biodiversity.
These areas where people and wildlands meet are called the wildland-urban interface, or WUI for short. More technically, a WUI (pronounced “woo-ee”) describes anywhere that has at least one house per 40 acres and is also 50% covered by wildland ...
Using new method, study highlights physician turnover trend
2023-07-19
Using an innovative method for measuring doctor turnover, Weill Cornell Medicine researchers determined that between 2010 and 2018, the annual rate at which physicians left their practices increased by 43 percent, from 5.3 percent to 7.6 percent a year. The causes of this trend are not known, but warrant further investigation, according to the researchers.
The study, published July 11 in the Annals of Internal Medicine, also found that the first three quarters of 2020 (the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States) were not associated with higher turnover. However, more data are needed to fully understand turnover trends related to COVID-19.
Whether doctors ...
Winery experiences affected by more than what is in your glass
2023-07-19
New research from the University of British Columbia's Okanagan campus has determined that enjoying a tasting at a winery goes well beyond the sip.
Professor Annamma Joy, with UBCO’s Faculty of Management, conducts research in the area of consumer behaviour and branding with a special focus on luxury brands, fashion brand experiences, wineries and wine tourism.
Dr. Joy, along with her collaborators and students, studied several Okanagan wineries over a three-year period to comprehensively document the experiences ...
Researchers use mass spectrometry to explore antimicrobial resistance
2023-07-19
Laura-Isobel McCall, Ph.D., and Zhibo Yang, Ph.D., co-principal investigators and associate professors of chemistry and biochemistry in the Dodge Family College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Oklahoma, have been awarded a prestigious R01 grant from the National Institutes of Health for their project, “Novel single-cell mass spectrometry to assess the role of intracellular drug concentration and metabolism in antimicrobial treatment failure.”
“Our project builds upon Dr. ...
Novel therapeutic strategy against melanoma: combined targeting of hedgehog signaling and BRD4
2023-07-19
“This evidence strengthens the relevance of the findings by Pietrobono et al., shedding light on the potential application of SMO inhibitors in concert with BRD4 inhibitors.”
BUFFALO, NY- July 19, 2023 – A new editorial paper was published in Oncotarget's Volume 14 on May 26, 2023, entitled, “Combined targeting of HEDGEHOG signaling and BRD4 as a novel therapeutic option against melanoma.”
The Hedgehog-GLI (HH/GLI) pathway is aberrantly activated in several types of cancer. Canonical HH/ GLI pathway is triggered by binding of HH ligands to the twelve-pass transmembrane receptor Patched 1 (PTCH1), which retrieves its inhibition ...