Background: The occurrence of Alzheimer's disease (AD) can be partially prevented through healthy lifestyles, but the mechanisms associated with AD pathology are unclear.
Objective: To explore associations among healthy lifestyle characteristics (HLCs), cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) soluble TREM2 (sTREM2), and AD biomarkers.
Methods: From the Chinese Alzheimer's Biomarker and LifestylE (CABLE) study, 924 cognitively normal participants were enrolled in this cross-sectional analysis. We defined the following 11 HLCs: appropriate frequencies of coffee and tea consumption, sufficient frequencies of fish and fruit intake, non-social isolation, adequate sleep, regular physical activity, no depression, never smoking, non-hazardous drinking, and well-maintained blood pressure. We categorized participants according to the number of HLCs reported by participants into favorable, intermediate, and unfavorable lifestyle groups. Multiple linear regression was used to investigate the relationship among HLCs, CSF sTREM2, and AD biomarkers. Mediation effects were tested using a causal mediation analysis having 10,000 bootstrap iterations.
Results: Included subjects were with a mean age of 61.8 ± 10.2 years, of which 41.8% were female. Sufficient fish intake (β = -0.164, p = 0.017) and well-maintained blood pressure (β = -0.232, p = 0.006) were significantly correlated with lower CSF sTREM2 levels. A larger number of HLCs were associated with lower CSF T-tau (p = 0.001), P-tau (p = 0.012), and sTREM2 (p = 0.040) levels. CSF sTREM2 partially mediated the association between the number of HLCs and CSF tau pathology (mediating proportion T-tau: 22.4%; P-tau: 25.0%).
Conclusions: HLCs might impact the pathological processes of AD by regulating neuroinflammation.
Keywords: Alzheimer's disease; cerebrospinal fluid; healthy lifestyle characteristics; soluble TREM2.