This Article  • Full text  • PDF  • Reply to article  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Citation map  • Citing articles on HighWire  • Citing articles on ISI (4)  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Similar articles in this journal  Topic Collections  • Men's Health  • Men's Health, Other  • Alzheimer Disease  • Dementias  • Neurology, Other  • Nutritional and Metabolic Disorders  • Lipids and Lipid Disorders  • Alert me on articles by topic

The Honolulu-Asia Aging Study

Robert Stewart, MD; Lon R. White, MD; Qian-Li Xue, PhD; Lenore J. Launer, PhD

Arch Neurol. 2007;64(1):103-107.

Background  The relationship between total cholesterol levels and dementia is unclear.

Objective  To compare the natural history of change in total cholesterol across 26 years between men who did and did not develop dementia 3 years after the last measurement.

Design, Setting, and Participants  In the Honolulu-Asia Aging Study, 1027 Japanese American men had total cholesterol levels assayed on 5 occasions between 1965 and 1993 and were screened for dementia on 2 occasions between 1991 and 1996.

Main Outcome Measure  The slope of 26-year change in serum total cholesterol levels was estimated by a repeated-measures analysis and was compared between men with incident dementia (n = 56) and those without dementia (n = 971) at the end of the follow-up period.

Results  Cholesterol levels in men with dementia and, in particular, those with Alzheimer disease had declined at least 15 years before the diagnosis and remained lower than cholesterol levels in men without dementia throughout that period. The difference in slopes was robust to adjustment for potential confounding factors, including vascular risk factors, weight change, alcohol intake, and use of lipid-lowering agents.

Conclusion  A decline in serum total cholesterol levels may be associated with early stages in the development of dementia.

Author Affiliations: King's College London (Institute of Psychiatry), Section of Epidemiology, London, England (Dr Stewart); Pacific Health Research Institute, Honolulu, Hawaii (Dr White); and The Johns Hopkins Center on Aging and Health (Dr Xue) and Laboratory of Epidemiology, Demography, and Biometry, National Institute on Aging, National Institutes of Health (Dr Launer), Baltimore, Md.

THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES

Cholesterol as a Risk Factor for Dementia and Cognitive Decline: A Systematic Review of Prospective Studies With Meta-Analysis
Anstey et al.
AJGP 2008;16:343-354.
ABSTRACT | FULL TEXT  

Statins Reduce Amyloid-beta Production through Inhibition of Protein Isoprenylation
Ostrowski et al.
J. Biol. Chem. 2007;282:26832-26844.
ABSTRACT | FULL TEXT  

The metabolic syndrome is associated with decelerated cognitive decline in the oldest old
van den Berg et al.
Neurology 2007;69:979-985.
ABSTRACT | FULL TEXT