Age and gender affect dementia risk

As recent findings show, biomarkers that can be detected by blood tests don’t just appear randomly – they depend on a variety of factors. Experts from Germany have discovered how age, genetics, hormonal background and gender are linked to levels of three key proteins associated with dementia. The discovery could improve ways of early detection of memory disorders.

The focus was on three proteins that can be tracked in the blood at once: neurofilament light chain protein, glial acidic protein and phosphorylated tau protein 181. The first signals nerve cell damage, the second is responsible for recovery from injury, and the third is directly linked to amyloid accumulation, which is characteristic of Alzheimer’s disease.

The team benchmarked 1,026 people: half had experienced dementia within 17 years, the other half had not. Participants had blood drawn three times during the follow-up period, recording changes in biomarker levels. The average age of the volunteers at the beginning was 64.

It turned out that levels of all three proteins increased with age. In 75-year-olds, neurofilament protein levels averaged 25 pg/mL, while in 50-year-olds they averaged only 10 pg/mL. Glial protein increased to 140 pg/mL vs. 45, and tau protein increased to 2-3 pg/mL vs. 0.5-1.5.

Interestingly, women were more likely to have elevated glial protein values, while men were more likely to have elevated neurofilament protein values. Carriers of the APOEe4 gene associated with Alzheimer’s disease had elevated levels of tau and glial proteins, regardless of gender.

Special attention was paid to pre- and post-menopausal women. It turned out that glial protein levels were higher before menopause, possibly due to the influence of sex hormones. Previous scientific data have already linked the hormonal background with inflammatory processes in the brain.

According to the authors, these data will become the basis for the creation of more accurate and affordable tests that can detect the risk of dementia long before the first symptoms.