Background and objectives: Prevention strategies for Alzheimer disease and Alzheimer disease-related dementias (AD/ADRDs) are urgently needed. Lipid variability, or fluctuations in blood lipid levels at different points in time, has not been examined extensively and may contribute to the risk of AD/ADRD. Lipid panels are a part of routine screening in clinical practice and routinely available in electronic health records (EHR). Thus, in a large geographically defined population-based cohort, we investigated the variation of multiple lipid types and their association to the development of AD/ADRD.
Methods: All residents living in Olmsted County, Minnesota on the index date January 1, 2006, aged 60 years or older without an AD/ADRD diagnosis were identified. Persons with ≥3 lipid measurements including total cholesterol, triglycerides, low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C), or high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) in the 5 years before index date were included. Lipid variation was defined as any change in individual's lipid levels over time regardless of direction and was measured using variability independent of the mean (VIM). Associations between lipid variation quintiles and incident AD/ADRD were assessed using Cox proportional hazards regression. Participants were followed through 2018 for incident AD/ADRD.
Results: The final analysis included 11,571 participants (mean age 71 years; 54% female). Median follow-up was 12.9 years with 2,473 incident AD/ADRD cases. After adjustment for confounding variables including sex, race, baseline lipid measurements, education, BMI, and lipid-lowering treatment, participants in the highest quintile of total cholesterol variability had a 19% increased risk of incident AD/ADRD, and those in highest quintile of triglycerides, variability had a 23% increased risk.
Discussion: In a large EHR derived cohort, those in the highest quintile of variability for total cholesterol and triglyceride levels had an increased risk of incident AD/ADRD. Further studies to identify the mechanisms behind this association are needed.
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