(Press-News.org) Higher inflammation in young adulthood linked to lower performance in skills testing in midlife.
Young adults who have higher levels of inflammation, which is associated with obesity, physical inactivity, chronic illness, stress and smoking, may experience reduced cognitive function in midlife, a new study out of UC San Francisco has found.
Researchers previously linked higher inflammation in older adults to dementia, but this is one of the first studies to connect inflammation in early adulthood with lower cognitive abilities in midlife.
“We know from long-term studies that brain changes leading to Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias may take decades to develop,” said first author Amber Bahorik, PhD, of the UCSF Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and the Weill Institute for Neurosciences. “We wanted to see if health and lifestyle habits in early adulthood may play a part in cognitive skills in midlife, which in turn may influence the likelihood of dementia in later life.”
In their study, publishing in Neurology on July 3, researchers found that only 10% of those with low inflammation performed poorly on testing of processing speed and memory, compared to 21% and 19%, respectively, of those with either moderate or higher levels of inflammation.
When researchers adjusted for factors like age, physical activity and total cholesterol, disparities remained in processing speed; and the researchers also found differences in executive functioning, which includes working memory, problem solving and impulse control.
The study followed 2,364 adults in the CARDIA study, which aims to identify the factors in young adulthood that lead to cardiovascular disease two-to-three decades later.
Participants were 18 to 30 years old when they entered the study and were tested four times over an 18-year period for the inflammatory marker C-reactive protein (CRP). They took the cognitive tests five years after their last CRP measurement, by which time most participants were in their forties and fifties.
About half the participants were female; a little under half were Black, and the rest were white. Some 45% had lower stable inflammation, while 16% had moderate or increasing inflammation; 39% had higher levels.
A link between inflammation and health risks
The researchers also linked higher levels of inflammation with physical inactivity, higher BMI and current smoking.
“Inflammation plays a significant role in cognitive aging and may begin in early adulthood,” said senior author Kristine Yaffe, MD, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, neurology, and epidemiology and biostatistics at UCSF. “There is likely a direct and indirect effect of inflammation on cognition.”
Yaffe is a member of the first team of experts to determine that 30% of dementia risk is preventable. Her recent research has looked at the association in midlife between fragmented sleep and lower cognition and the effects of personalized health and lifestyle changes in preventing memory loss in higher-risk older adults.
“Fortunately, there are ways to reduce inflammation – such as by increasing physical activity and quitting smoking – that might be promising paths for prevention,” Yaffe said.
Co-Authors: Tina Hoang, MSPH, of Northern California Institute for Research and Education; David R. Jacobs, PhD, of University of Minnesota; Deborah Levine, MD, PhD, of University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
Funding: Please see the paper.
Disclosures: Yaffe reports serving on the Data Safety Monitoring Board for Eli Lilly and several National Institute on Aging sponsored studies, consultation services for Alpha Cognition, serving on the board of directors for Alector Inc., data and safety and monitoring services for Dominantly Inherited Alzheimer Network Trials Unit, and serving on the Beeson Scientific Advisory Board and the Global Council on Brain Health.
About UCSF Health: UCSF Health is recognized worldwide for its innovative patient care, reflecting the latest medical knowledge, advanced technologies and pioneering research. It includes the flagship UCSF Medical Center, which is a top-ranked hospital, as well as UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospitals, with campuses in San Francisco and Oakland; Langley Porter Psychiatric Hospital; UCSF Benioff Children’s Physicians; and the UCSF Faculty Practice. These hospitals serve as the academic medical center of the University of California, San Francisco, which is world-renowned for its graduate-level health sciences education and biomedical research. UCSF Health has affiliations with hospitals and health organizations throughout the Bay Area. Visit https://www.ucsfhealth.org/. Follow UCSF Health on Facebook or on Twitter
###
Follow UCSF
ucsf.edu | Facebook.com/ucsf | Twitter.com/ucsf | YouTube.com/ucsf
END
Poor health, stress in 20s takes toll in 40s with lower cognition
2024-07-03
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
Scientists may have found how to diagnose elusive neuro disorder
2024-07-03
Progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP), a mysterious and deadly neurological disorder, usually goes undiagnosed until after a patient dies and an autopsy is performed. But now, UC San Francisco researchers have found a way to identify the condition while patients are still alive.
A study appearing in Neurology on July 3 has found a pattern in the spinal fluid of PSP patients, using a new high-throughput technology that can measure thousands of proteins in a tiny drop of fluid.
Researchers ...
Cracking the code for cerebellar movement disorders
2024-07-03
The cerebellum is a region of the brain that helps us refine our movements and learn new motor skills. Patients and mouse models experience many kinds of abnormal movements when their cerebellum is damaged. They can have uncoordinated and unbalanced movements, called ataxia. They can have atypical positioning of body parts or uncontrolled movements because their muscles are working against each other, called dystonia. Or they can have disruptive shaky movements, called tremors. Understanding how changes in a single brain region ...
Stability indicating RP-HPLC method for the estimation of impurities in esomeprazole gastro-resistant tablets by AQbD approach
2024-07-03
https://www.scienceopen.com/hosted-document?doi=10.15212/bioi-2024-0018
Announcing a new article publication for BIO Integration journal. Esomeprazole (ESO) gastro-resistant tablets (40 mg) are sold under the brand name, Zosa, which effectively manages conditions associated with the overproduction of gastric acid, including peptic ulcer disease and Zollinger-Ellison syndrome. This article quantifies impurities in esomeprazole using advanced analytical techniques known as analytical quality by design with high-performance liquid chromatography.
Buffer selection ...
Clinical implications and procedural complications in patients with patent foramen ovale concomitant with atrial septal aneurysm
2024-07-03
https://www.scienceopen.com/hosted-document?doi=10.15212/CVIA.2024.0038
Announcing a new article publication for Cardiovascular Innovations and Applications journal. Atrial septal aneurysm (ASA) is defined as excursion of the atrial septum exceeding 10 mm beyond the atrial septum into the right or left atrium, or a combined total excursion of 15 mm on the right and left sides during the cardiac cycle. According to previous studies, 20–40% of patent foramen ovale (PFO) cases are accompanied by ASAs. ASA is associated with the presence of PFO, left atrial dysfunction, cryptogenic stroke, migraine, and arterial embolism, thus making ...
Cryptocurrency investors are more likely to self-report “Dark Tetrad” personality traits alongside other characteristics
2024-07-03
Owning cryptocurrency may be associated with certain personality and demographic characteristics as well as a reliance on alternative or fringe social media sources, according to a study published July 3, 2024 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Shane Littrell from the University of Toronto, Canada, along with colleagues from the University of Miami, USA.
Anonymous trading and unregulated markets hallmark cryptocurrency’s unique subculture. While some consider the digital currency to be financially unreliable, hundreds of millions of global investors think otherwise.
This study identified various political, psychological, and social characteristics ...
Smoking behavior is linked to personality traits
2024-07-03
Cigarette smokers, cigar smokers, and non-smokers each have distinct personality profiles, according to a study published July 3, 2024 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Dritjon Gruda from Universidade Catolica Portuguesa, Portugal, and Jim McCleskey from Western Governors University, USA.
Tobacco use remains a formidable global public health challenge, responsible for more than 8 million deaths annually, including those attributed to second-hand smoke exposure. Emerging research underscores the critical role of psychological factors, including personality traits, in shaping ...
Minority status, social origin, gender, and weight can all count against a German kid’s grades
2024-07-03
A new study done in more than 14,000 ninth graders in Germany has revealed that students experience grading bias based on their gender, body size, ethnicity and parental socio-economic status. These negative biases stack on each other, meaning that students with multiple intersectional identities get significantly lower grades than their peers regardless of their true abilities. Richard Nennstiel and Sandra Gilgen of the University of Bern and University of Zurich in Switzerland present these findings in the open-access journal PLOS ONE on July 3, ...
Dengue linked to heightened short- and long-term risk of depression in Taiwan
2024-07-03
Analysis of the medical records of nearly 50,000 people who experienced dengue fever in Taiwan suggests that this disease is associated with elevated short- and long-term risk of depression. Hsin-I Shih and colleagues of National Cheng Kung University and National Health Research Institutes, Taiwan present these findings in the open-access journal PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases.
People may develop dengue fever after being bitten by a mosquito carrying the dengue virus. Dengue fever can be mild, but it can also progress ...
Fighting COVID-19 with a cancer drug
2024-07-03
Twelve years ago, cancer researchers at University of California San Diego identified a molecule that helps cancer cells survive by shuttling damaging inflammatory cells into tumor tissue. In new research, they show that the same molecule does the same thing in lung tissue infected with COVID-19 — and that the molecule can be suppressed with a repurposed cancer drug. The work, published in Science Translational Medicine, represents a new approach to preventing irreversible organ damage in infectious diseases like COVID-19 and methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA).
The two key players in this scenario are inflammatory cells called myeloid ...
From ‘hit to vial’: Discovery and optimization of a promising vaccine adjuvant
2024-07-03
Many vaccines are only partially effective, have waning efficacy, or do not work well in the very young or the very old. For more than a decade, Ofer Levy, MD, PhD, and David Dowling, PhD, in the Precision Vaccines Program at Boston Children’s Hospital, have tried improving vaccines by adding compounds known as adjuvants to boost vaccine recipients’ immune responses.
Now, under a large Adjuvant Discovery Program contract from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases ...