Middle-aged and older adults with metabolic syndrome had older-appearing brains, a large imaging study from the U.K. Biobank cohort suggested.
Participants with metabolic syndrome had a significantly higher brain age gap than those without metabolic syndrome (β=1.13), reported Abigail Dove, PhD, of the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, at the Alzheimer's Association International Conference.
Brain age gap is the difference between a person's estimated brain age based on MRI and their chronological age. A positive brain age gap can be a predictive biomarker for cognitive decline.
The study findings, published in Alzheimer's & Dementia, suggest that metabolic syndrome -- a cluster of five risk factors for diabetes and cardiovascular disease including hyperglycemia, hypertension, central adiposity, low HDL cholesterol, and high triglycerides -- may represent a modifiable target to slow brain aging, Dove suggested.
Each individual component of metabolic syndrome was associated with older brain age. "The relationship between metabolic syndrome and older brain age was dose-dependent," she observed.
