Public Health.

Background: Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a neurodegenerative disorder with significant environmental factors, including diet, that influence its onset and progression. While the ketogenic diet (KD) holds promise in reducing metabolic risks and potentially affecting AD progression, only a few studies have explored the KD's molecular impact for markers of AD therapeutic potential. The BEAM diet study simultaneously profiled the KD's effect on the lipidome, blood and cerebrospinal metabolome, and microbiome of both cognitively impaired and cognitively normal individuals.

Biomarkers.

Background: Our Alzheimer Disease Metabolomics Consortium (ADMC), part of the Accelerating Medicines Partnership for AD (AMP-AD) and in partnership with AD Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI), applied state-of-the-art metabolomics and lipidomics technologies combined with genomic and imaging data to map metabolic failures across the trajectory of the disease. Our studies confirmed that peripheral metabolic changes influenced by the exposome inform about cognitive changes, brain imaging changes, and ATN markers for disease confirming that peripheral and central changes are connected, in part through the metabolome.

Methods: To map the biochemical changes in AD, we used various targeted and untargeted metabolic platforms to profile ∼800 postmortem brain tissue, and ∼ 5000 blood samples.

Developing Topics.

Background: Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a devastating form of dementia, and its prevalence is rising as human lifespan increases. Our lab created the AD-BXD mouse model, which expresses AD mutations across a genetically diverse reference panel (BXD), to identify factors that confer resilience to cognitive decline in AD. This model mimics key characteristics of human AD including variation in age of onset and severity of cognitive decline.

Consuming a modified Mediterranean ketogenic diet reverses the peripheral lipid signature of Alzheimer's disease in humans.

Background: Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a major neurodegenerative disorder with significant environmental factors, including diet and lifestyle, influencing its onset and progression. Although previous studies have suggested that certain diets may reduce the incidence of AD, the underlying mechanisms remain unclear.

Method: In this post-hoc analysis of a randomized crossover study of 20 elderly adults, we investigated the effects of a modified Mediterranean ketogenic diet (MMKD) on the plasma lipidome in the context of AD biomarkers, analyzing 784 lipid species across 47 classes using a targeted lipidomics platform.

Impact of Removing the Monitoring Requirements for Holdings with Atypical Scrapie in Great Britain.

Atypical scrapie (AS) is a transmissible spongiform encephalopathy (TSE) that affects sheep and goats. Low within-flock incidence suggests that AS is not transmissible between animals, and testing of all animals that exit positive flocks for two years following detection (i.e.