06/20/2024
Dementia, and Alzheimer’s dementia in particular, is a complex disease that we do not fully understand. There are many contributing factors as to why someone may be at risk, but many of them involve the way we process and use fats in the body. Here are some things we do know when it comes to fat metabolism and dementia.
Both too high and too low levels of “good cholesterol”, HDL, are linked with increased risk. As for the “bad cholesterol”, LDL, high variability in your levels is what puts you at greatest risk for dementia not just having high LDL. This shows there is no “bad” and “good” cholesterol, everything serves a purpose in the body and healthy balance is key.
Certain cholesterol transport proteins do, however, increase your risk. Greater amounts of apolipoprotein B, a protein associated with shuttling LDL around in the body, is linked to Alzheimer’s disease.
The greatest genetic factor we know of associated with Alzheimer’s is linked to, you guessed it - lipid metabolism. The gene, apolipoprotein E (APO-E), codes for lipoproteins that are responsible for the transport and metabolism of various lipids in the body. In the central nervous system this protein is responsible for delivering cholesterol to the cells. there are multiple variants of this gene and one in particular, APO-E4, is associated with greater risk of developing Alzheimer’s. In fact 40-50% of people with Alzheimer’s carry the gene variant.
So while we do not have all the answers yet about this disease, we certainly do know enough to make a dent in preventing it. If you are interested in assessing your risk and optimizing your lipid medicine, we would love to work with you! DM us or go to our website for more
information.