Implications of Liver Enzymes in the Pathogenesis of Alzheimer's Disease.

To investigate an association of serum liver enzymes with Alzheimer's disease (AD) diagnosis and cognitive performance, we performed logistic and linear regression analyses in 781 patients with AD and 405 cognitively normal subjects. We found that alanine aminotransferase (ALT) and aspartate aminotransferase (AST) levels had significant positive associations with cognitive performance and were significantly decreased in AD patients. The alkaline phosphatase level and AST to ALT ratio were significantly negatively associated with cognitive performance and were significantly increased in AD patients. This suggests that these liver enzymes might be implicated in the pathogenesis of AD.