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The moderating effect of diet on the relationship between depressive symptoms and Alzheimer’s disease-related blood-based biomarkers
The connection between mental health, diet, and Alzheimer’s disease risk underscores the importance of exploring whether dietary patterns influence the relationship between depression and anxiety symptoms and neurodegeneration-related blood biomarkers. Participants from the Australian Imaging, Biomarkers, and Lifestyle research who were cognitively unimpaired (n = 89, average age 75.37, 44% male) were included In this study by Al Shamsi et al. (2025). The participants provided data on their diet, depression, and anxiety symptoms, as well as blood-based biomarker measurements. Dietary patterns were scored, including Western diet, Mediterranean diet (MeDi), and Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension diet (DASH). Among males with average or below-average adherence to the MeDi, depressive symptoms were linked to higher neurofilament light (NfL) levels. For individuals who did not carry the Apolipoprotein E ε4 gene and had below-average or average adherence to the MeDi, depressive symptoms were associated with increased NfL and Aβ40 levels. No such associations were found for DASH or Western diets. The results imply that MeDi adherence could mitigate the association between neurodegeneration-related biomarkers and depressed symptoms, with sex and genotype-specific characteristics being important to take into account in this regard.
Year: 2025
