Midlife cholesterol linked to dementia

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San Francisco Chronicle

Victoria Colliver, Chronicle Staff Writer

You might want to think twice about that plate of steak and eggs.

A new study that looked at Kaiser Permanente Northern California members over a four-decade period found that even borderline to moderately high cholesterol levels in your 40s can significantly raise the chances of developing dementia later in life.

The study, published recently in the journal Dementia & Geriatrics Cognitive Disorders, found the risk for developing Alzheimer's disease increased by as much as 66 percent among people with high cholesterol in midlife, a level defined as 240 or higher milligrams per deciliter (1.75 pints) of blood.

For those with just moderately high cholesterol - between 200 and 239 milligrams per deciliter - the risk of developing vascular dementia, the second-most common form of dementia after Alzheimer's, increased by 52 percent.

"The thing that struck us as most surprising was that not only was high cholesterol associated with elevated risk of developing dementia later in life, but also borderline levels of cholesterol," said the study's senior author, Rachel Whitmer, a Kaiser research scientist and epidemiologist. "This is a new piece of the puzzle as we're trying to understand risk factors for dementia."

The Kaiser research, considered the largest and most diverse long-term study to examine the link between cholesterol at midlife and the development of dementia later on, adds a growing body of evidence to link cholesterol and vascular health with the two most common forms of dementia.

Bill Fisher, chief executive of the Alzheimer's Association of Northern California and Northern Nevada, said Kaiser's results were consistent with many studies over the last five or six years that show a link between cardiovascular health and dementia.

"We never say to people, 'You do this and you won't develop Alzheimer's,' because we can't say that," Fisher said, adding that genetic components to the disease, such as an inherited type of protein, can't be changed with diet and exercise.

"But we do say, what's good for the heart is good for your brain. There's a lot of data behind that."

More than 5 million Americans suffer from Alzheimer's disease, an incurable brain disorder that is the sixth-leading cause of death. Vascular dementia is linked to strokes, but lacks the abnormal brain structures known as plaques and tangles associated with an Alzheimer's diagnosis. This form of dementia is caused by blockages to the brain's blood supply.

The Kaiser study looked at 9,844 men and women who were 40 to 45 years old between 1964 and 1973 when their cholesterol levels were first collected. Of the total participants, 469 were diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease between 1994 and 2007 when the members were between 61 and 88 years old, and 127 developed vascular dementia.

The tests did not break down cholesterol to examine the impact of the ratio of "good" to "bad" cholesterol on developing dementia.

Whitmer found the overall results....read all of Midlife cholesterol linked to dementia