Dietary Responses of Dementia-Related Genes Encoding Metabolic Enzymes

• Published in: Nutrients Vol. 15; no. 3; p. 644
• Main Authors: Parnell, Laurence D, Magadmi, Rozana, Zwanger, Sloane, Shukitt-Hale, Barbara, Lai, Chao-Qiang, Ordovás, José M
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Switzerland MDPI AG 27.01.2023; MDPI
• Subjects: Age; Alzheimer Disease - genetics; Alzheimer Disease - psychology; Alzheimer's disease; Blood; Brain; Broccoli; Cognition & reasoning; Cognition - physiology; Cognitive ability; Dementia; Dementia disorders; Dementia, Vascular; Diet; Enzymatic activity; Enzyme activity; Enzymes; Epidemiology; Flavonoids; Food intake; Gene expression; Genes; gene–diet interaction; Genotypes; Heart; Humans; Kinases; Lifestyles; metabolic enzyme; Metabolism; Metabolites; Mortality; Nutrients; Nutrition research; Offspring; Palmitic acid; Parkinson's disease; Proteins; Sleep; Taurine; Tissues; Vascular dementia; United States; United States > US; gene–diet interaction; dementia; metabolic enzyme; taurine; diet; flavonoids
• ISSN: 2072-6643; 2072-6643
• DOI: 10.3390/nu15030644

The age-related loss of the cognitive function is a growing concern for global populations. Many factors that determine cognitive resilience or dementia also have metabolic functions. However, this duality is not universally appreciated when the action of that factor occurs in tissues external to the brain. Thus, we examined a set of genes involved in dementia, i.e., those related to vascular dementia, Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, and the human metabolism for activity in 12 metabolically active tissues. Mining the Genotype-Tissue Expression (GTEx) data showed that most of these metabolism-dementia (MD) genes (62 of 93, 67%) exhibit a higher median expression in any of the metabolically active tissues than in the brain. After identifying that several MD genes served as blood-based biomarkers of longevity in other studies, we examined the impact of the intake of food, nutrients, and other dietary factors on the expression of MD genes in whole blood in the Framingham Offspring Study ( = 2134). We observed positive correlations between flavonoids and , taurine and , broccoli and , and myricetin and ( < 2.09 × 10 ). In contrast, dairy protein, palmitic acid, and pie were negatively correlated, respectively, with the expression of , , and , among others ( < 2.92 × 10 ). The results of this investigation underscore the potential contributions of metabolic enzyme activity in non-brain tissues to the risk of dementia. Specific epidemiological or intervention studies could be designed using specific foods and nutrients or even dietary patterns focused on these foods and nutrients that influence the expression of some MD genes to verify the findings presented here.