A dementia diagnosis is made worldwide every three seconds. Although there is no known treatment for dementia, it has been discovered that changes to the brain take place years before dementia is identified.
According to an article in “Neuroscience News,” researchers from the Australian Center for Precision Health of the University of South Australia conducted the first global study of its kind to identify a relationship between brain measurements linked to dementia and metabolism, offering important new insights into the illness.
Researchers at the UK Biobank examined data from 26,239 individuals and discovered that those whose obesity was caused by inflammation or stress in the liver or kidneys had the worst effects on their brains.
In order to discover early risk factors for dementia, the study examined the relationships between six different metabolic profiles and 39 cardiac metabolic markers with measurements of brain volume, brain lesions, and iron accumulation from MRI brain scans.
After reverse MRI revealed smaller hippocampus and grey matter sizes, a heavier burden of brain lesions, and increased iron accumulation, it was shown that individuals with metabolic profiles linked to obesity were more likely to be affected.
Lead author Dr. Amanda Lumsden notes that “dementia is a terrible disease that affects more than 55 million individuals globally,” and that the study “adds a new layer of understanding of brain health.”
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“Understanding the metabolic characteristics and profiles associated with dementia-related brain abnormalities might help detect early risk factors for dementia, which harmful neuroimaging patterns have showed are more common among people with metabolic types associated with obesity,” continued Dr. Lumsden.
These individuals, according to Dr. Lumsden, also had elevated BMR, which is the amount of energy required by the human body to maintain its essential processes while at rest. Curiously, BMR also seems to be associated with negative changes in some brain indicators.
“The discovery opens up a new way to understand brain health, according to Professor Elina Hypponen, senior researcher at the University of South Australia. The study’s findings indicate that metabolic profiles are connected to several elements of brain health. Associations with a variety of distinct biomarkers have also been found, which may offer hints about the dementia-causing processes.
finding a connection between metabolism and dementia-related brain health
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