A Dietary Supplement Containing Micronutrients, Phosphatidylserine, and Docosahexaenoic Acid Counteracts Cognitive Impairment in D-Galactose-Induced Aged Rats

Qian Ren; Jianqin Sun; Danfeng Xu; Hua Xie; Mengyao Ye; Yanfang Zhao

doi:10.3389/fnut.2022.931734

A Dietary Supplement Containing Micronutrients, Phosphatidylserine, and Docosahexaenoic Acid Counteracts Cognitive Impairment in D-Galactose-Induced Aged Rats

Front Nutr. 2022 Jul 5:9:931734. doi: 10.3389/fnut.2022.931734. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Qian Ren^{1

2}, Jianqin Sun¹, Danfeng Xu¹, Hua Xie¹, Mengyao Ye^{1

3}, Yanfang Zhao¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Clinical Nutrition, Huadong Hospital Affiliated to Fudan University, Shanghai, China.
² Department of Clinical Nutrition, Shanghai Jiao Tong University Affiliated Sixth People's Hospital, Shanghai, China.
³ Department of Endocrinology and Metabolism, Wenzhou Integrated Traditional Chinese and Western Medicine Hospital, Wenzhou, China.

Abstract

At present, it is a trend to use dietary supplements to prevent age-related cognitive impairment. This study aimed to investigate the effects of a dietary supplement enriched with micronutrients, phosphatidylserine, and docosahexaenoic acid on cognitive performance using a D-galactose (D-gal) induced aging rat model. Seven-month-old male Sprague-Dawley rats were randomly divided into five groups, including the control group, D-gal model group, and low-dose (2 g/kg body weight), medium-dose (6 g/kg body weight), and high-dose (10 g/kg body weight) dietary supplement intervention groups, which were investigated for 13 weeks. The dietary supplement intervention was found to improve cognitive performance in Morris water maze test, increase superoxidase dismutase activity, reduce malondialdehyde activity, decrease tumor necrosis factor-α and interleukin-6 concentrations, inhibit the activation of astrocytes, and elevate brain-derived neurotrophic factor protein and mRNA expression in the brains of D-gal-induced aged rats. This dietary supplement customized for the aged can be applied to the restoration of cognitive performance by enhancing antioxidant and anti-neuroinflammatory abilities, up-regulating neurotrophic factors, and inhibiting the activation of astrocytes. These results will be useful for future studies focused on implementation in humans.

Keywords: brain-derived neurotrophic factor; cognitive impairment; dietary supplement; docosahexaenoic acid; micronutrient; neuroinflammation; phosphatidylserine.