The results of this study, led by the Nutrition and Metabolic Health research group of the IISPV and the URV, contribute to improve the prediction of Alzheimer’s disease and to design preventive and therapeutic strategies to mitigate its symptoms
A research team led by the IISPV and the URV has identified molecules in the blood that link insulin resistance to an increased risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease. The discovery of these compounds, a type of metabolites -molecules that are the product of the set of chemical reactions that take place in a living organism-, can improve current methods of predicting Alzheimer’s disease. “We have opened a new avenue in research into the prevention and treatment in the early stages of this disease and the relationship between dementias and metabolic diseases such as obesity,” celebrates Mònica Bulló, a researcher in the Department of Biochemistry and Biotechnology.
Alzheimer’s is an incurable, degenerative and terminal disease that is usually diagnosed in people over 65 years of age. In the early stages, the characteristic symptom is memory loss. As the disease progresses, confusion, irritability, mood swings and loss of sensibility appear. Finally, vital functions decline, ultimately leading to the patient’s death. According to the World Health Organization, Alzheimer’s is the most common form of dementia – it is diagnosed in more than 60 out of every 100 cases of dementia patients – and is estimated to have an annual economic impact of approximately 1.2 billion euros worldwide.
To carry out the study, researchers from the Nutrition and Metabolic Health (NuMeH) research group worked with data from 400 individuals with mild cognitive impairment, who were followed for four years. During this period, the deterioration of 142 of the individuals evolved into dementia of the Alzheimer’s type. By analyzing more than 600 plasma metabolites, extracted from the individuals’ blood during medical follow-up, they identified a set of 18 metabolites already associated with insulin resistance. “The fact that we have found coincident biomarkers in these two pathologies opens the door to facilitating the early identification of Alzheimer’s disease in insulin-resistant individuals, since metabolic dysfunction appears before cognitive symptoms,” explains Bulló.
Beyond improving Alzheimer’s prediction tools, the methods developed in this research improve the analysis of metabolites in blood samples, which are more accessible than those of cerebrospinal fluid, which require a lumbar puncture, a more invasive process for the patient.
A better understanding of the role that these molecules play in the earlier stages of the disease may also help to design new preventive and therapeutic strategies to slow down the progression of Alzheimer’s disease and improve the quality of life of patients, also in the case of pathologies with common metabolites, such as insulin resistance, typical of patients with type 2 diabetes or obesity.
The research has been led by Professor Mónica Bulló, Director of the NuMeH Research Group and the TecnATox center, and has had the collaboration of researchers from the Pere Virgili Health Research Institute, the Ace Alzheimer Center Barcelona, the Pablo de Olavide University of Seville and the ITAKA research group of the URV and also belonging to TecnATox.
Reference: Laia Gutierrez-Tordera, Laura Panisello, Pablo García-Gonzalez, Agustín Ruiz, José Luis Cantero, Melina Rojas-Criollo, Muhammad Mursil, Mercedes Atienza, Nil Novau-Ferré, Javier Mateu-Fabregat, Hamza Mostafa, Domènec Puig, Jaume Folch, Hatem Rashwan, Marta Marquié, Mercè Boada, Christopher Papandreou, Mònica Bulló, Metabolic signature of insulin resistance and risk of Alzheimer’s disease, The Journals of Gerontology: Series A, 2024;, glae283, https://doi.org/10.1093/gerona/glae283