Abstract
Background
This cross sectional study examined whether intake of fibre and protein, are associated with apolipoprotein E allele, age and gender using Australian Imaging, Biomarkers and Lifestyle study of ageing [AIBL] cohort, which has not being studied previously.
Methods
The AIBL study is a longitudinal study of 1112 volunteers including healthy controls (HC). Of the baseline, 692 HCs completed the Cancer Council of Victoria Food Frequency Questionnaire. APOE genotype was determined using polymerase chain reaction amplification and restriction enzyme digest techniques.
Results
The average age was 69.84 years and mean daily protein and fibre intake was 84.13 and 22.96 g/day respectively. The percentage of carriers of the APOE ɛ4 allele and male was 26% and 41.6% respectively. When APOE was used as a categorical variable, there were 2.962 and 2.590 higher odds of being in the lowest and middle intake tertile compared to the highest intake protein tertile (p < 0.05), if APOE ɛ4 was positive. Additionally, there were 2.340 times more likely to consume the lowest amount of protein, than males by females, if APOE ε4 were present. However, effect of the APOE ε4 allele was lower with increasing age of female on the intake of protein.
Conclusions
Our results suggest that APOE ε4 carriers are more likely to have low to medium protein intakes and this is more significant with females than males. There were no associations between fibre intake and APOE and gender. The low intake of protein in females aged ≥ 72 years is likely due to genetic or environmental factors other than the APOE ε4. These data suggest that especially women, may benefit by consuming higher protein to prevent diseases that may be associated with the presence of APOE ε4 allele. Although our previous evidence suggested that individuals that undertake higher levels of protein are less likely to be amyloid positive [1], our current work indicated that age, APOE and gender may influence on the intake of protein. Reference: Fernando W, et al (2018) Associations of Dietary Protein and Fiber Intake with Brain and Blood Amyloid-beta. J Alzheimers Dis 61, 1589-1598.