Does Fatty Acid Composition in Subcutaneous Adipose Tissue Differ between Patients with Alzheimer’s Disease and Cohabiting Proxies?

Article type: Short Communication

Authors: Faxen-Irving, Gerd^{a; *} | Falahati, Farshad^a | Basun, Hans^b | Eriksdotter, Maria^{a; c} | Vedin, Inger^d | Wahlund, Lars-Olof^{a; c} | Schultzberg, Marianne^e | Hjorth, Erik^e | Palmblad, Jan^d | Cederholm, Tommy^{f; g; 1} | Freund-Levi, Yvonne^{a; c; 1}

Affiliations: [a] Department of Neurobiology, Care Sciences and Society (NVS), Division of Clinical Geriatrics, Karolinska Institutet, Huddinge, Sweden | [b] Department of Public Health and Caring Sciences, Division of Geriatrics, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden | [c] Department of Geriatrics, Karolinska University Hospital, Huddinge, Sweden | [d] Department of Medicine, Division of Hematology, Department of NVS, Karolinska Institutet, Huddinge, Sweden | [e] Division of Neurodegeneration, Karolinska Institutet, Huddinge, Sweden | [f] Department of Public Health and Caring Sciences, Division of Clinical Nutrition and Metabolism, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden | [g] Department of Geriatric Medicine, Akademiska sjukhuset, Uppsala, Sweden

Correspondence: [*] Correspondence to: Gerd Faxén Irving, Associate professor, R.D. Department NVS, Division of Clinical Geriatrics, Novum, 5th floor, S-141 57 Huddinge, Sweden. Tel.: +46 707333133; E-mail: gerd.faxen.irving@ki.se.

Note: [1] Equally shared senior authorship.

Abstract: Low tissue levels of the major marine ω3 fatty acids (FAs) DHA and EPA are found in Alzheimer’s disease (AD). We investigated if healthy proxies to AD patients have higher levels of these ω3 FAs. We observed lower levels of EPA and DHA in subcutaneous adipose tissue biopsies from 64 AD patients compared with 16 cognitively healthy proxies. No significant difference was observed when pairwise comparisons were made between a subset of 16 AD patients and their co-habiting proxies. Larger studies are needed to replicate these findings and to determine if they could depend on FA intake or differences in metabolism.

Keywords: Alzheimer’s disease, cognition, cohabitants, DHA, EPA, ω3 fatty acids, subcutaneous adipose tissue

DOI: 10.3233/JAD-170359

Journal: Journal of Alzheimer's Disease, vol. 61, no. 2, pp. 515-519, 2018