Red blood cell indices and anaemia as causative factors for cognitive function deficits and for Alzheimer's disease.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Studies have shown that low haemoglobin and anaemia are associated with poor cognition, and anaemia is known to be associated with Alzheimer's disease (AD), but the mechanism of this risk is unknown. Here, we first seek to confirm the association between cognition and anaemia and secondly, in order to further understand the mechanism of this association, to estimate the direction of causation using Mendelian randomisation.

Methods

Two independent cohorts were used in this analysis: AddNeuroMed, a longitudinal study of 738 subjects including AD and age-matched controls with blood cell measures, cognitive assessments and gene expression data from blood; and UK Biobank, a study of 502,649 healthy participants, aged 40-69 years with cognitive test measures and blood c

SUBMITTER: Winchester LM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6022699 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature