Affiliations: [a] Departments of Pharmacology & Experimental Therapeutics, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, MA, USA | [b] Department of Psychiatry, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, MA, USA | [c] Department of Neurology, The First People’s Hospital of Chang Zhou, China | [d] Department of Public Health and Family Medicine, Tufts University, Boston, MA, USA | [e] Department of Neuroscience, Mayo Clinic Florida, Jacksonville, FL, USA
Correspondence:
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Correspondence to: Wendy Wei Qiao Qiu, MD, PhD, Boston University Medical Campus, 72 East Concord Street, R-623D, Boston, MA 02118, USA. Tel.: +1 617 638 4336; Fax: +1 617 638 5254; E-mail: wqiu67@bu.edu
Abstract: Age is the major risk factor for developing Alzheimer’s disease (AD), and modifying age-related factors may help to delay the onset of the disease. The goal of this study was to investigate the relationship between age and the metabolic factors related to the risk of developing AD. The concentrations of insulin, amylin, and amyloid-β peptide (Aβ) in plasma were measured. We further measured the activity of serum Aβ degradation by using fluorescein- and biotin-labeled Aβ40. Apolipoprotein E4 allele (ApoE4) and cognitive impairment were characterized. Subjects were divided into three age groups: 60–70, 70–80, and ≥80 years old. We found that the older the subjects, the lower the concentration of insulin (p = 0.001) and the higher the concentration of Aβ1-40 (p = 0.004) in plasma. However, age was not associated with the concentration of another pancreatic peptide, amylin, and only marginally with Aβ1-42. These relationships remained in the absence of diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and stroke, and regardless of the presence of ApoE4 and cognitive impairment. Both age and ApoE4 were inversely associated with, while insulin was positively associated with, the activities of Aβ degradation in serum. Our study suggested that low concentration of insulin and high concentration of Aβ40 are aging factors related to the risk of AD.
