Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2020 Jan;132(1-2):42-46.
doi: 10.1007/s00508-019-01588-7. Epub 2019 Dec 12.

Spermidine in dementia : Relation to age and memory performance

Thomas Pekar  1 , Aribert Wendzel  2 , Walter Flak  3 , Alexandra Kremer  4 , Susanne Pauschenwein-Frantsich  5 , Anna Gschaider  5 , Felix Wantke  6 , Reinhart Jarisch  6   7
Affiliations

Spermidine in dementia : Relation to age and memory performance

Thomas Pekar et al. Wien Klin Wochenschr. 2020 Jan.

Abstract

Previous studies have highlighted that spermidine has the ability to trigger the important process of dissolving amyloid-beta plaques by autophagy. This manuscript focuses on the correlation of serum spermidine levels between age and between performance in mini-mental state examinations. It will serve as a premise for an ongoing multicentric placebo-controlled study, which focuses on the effect of oral spermidine supplementation on memory performance. Memory tests were carried out on 80 subjects aged 60-96 years old in 6 nursing homes in Styria. Blood samples were taken for the determination of spermidine concentration. The results showed a significant correlation between the spermidine concentration and the mini-mental state examination score (p = 0.025). On the basis of the dependence demonstrated it can be concluded that spermidine might be suitable as a biomarker for the diagnosis of neurocognitive changes (senile dementia or Alzheimer's disease).

Keywords: Alzheimer’s disease; CERAD Plus; Dementia; Memory performance; Spermidine.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

T. Pekar, A. Wendzel, W. Flak, A. Kremer, S. Pauschenwein-Frantsich, A. Gschaider, F. Wantke, and R. Jarisch declare that they have no competing interests.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Mini-mental state examination (MMSE) scores in male and female participants. Plots display the median (solid line), interquartile range (box), 10th and 90th percentiles (whiskers)
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Bivariate correlation between serum spermidine (Spd) levels and mini-mental state examination (MMSE). Kendall rank correlation coefficient tau‑b between spermidine and mini-mental state examination (MMSE) is 0.153 (p = 0.025)
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Bivariate correlation between serum spermidine levels and age. Pearson correlation coefficient between spermidine level and age is −0.512 (p < 0.001)
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Comment in

References

    1. Graham WV, Bonito-Oliva A, Sakmar TP. Update on alzheimer’s disease therapy and prevention strategies. Annu Rev Med. 2017;68(1):413–430. doi: 10.1146/annurev-med-042915-103753. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Karlawish J, Jack CR, Rocca WA, Snyder HM, Carrillo MC. Alzheimer’s disease: the next frontier—special report 2017. Alzheimers Dement. 2017;13(4):374–380. doi: 10.1016/j.jalz.2017.02.006. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Eisenberg T, Knauer H, Schauer A, Büttner S, Ruckenstuhl C, Carmona-Gutierrez D, et al. Induction of autophagy by spermidine promotes longevity. Nat Cell Biol. 2009;11(11):1305–1314. doi: 10.1038/ncb1975. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Eisenberg T, Abdellatif M, Schroeder S, Primessnig U, Stekovic S, Pendl T, et al. Cardioprotection and lifespan extension by the natural polyamine spermidine. Nat Med. 2016;22(12):1428–1438. doi: 10.1038/nm.4222. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Gupta VK, Scheunemann L, Eisenberg T, Mertel S, Bhukel A, Koemans TS, et al. Restoring polyamines protects from age-induced memory impairment in an autophagy-dependent manner. Nat Neurosci. 2013;16(10):1453–1460. doi: 10.1038/nn.3512. - DOI - PubMed