Serum folate and risk of disabling dementia: a community-based nested case-control study

Abstract

Purpose: The aim of this study was to examine associations between serum folate levels and risk of disabling dementia that required care under the national insurance (disabling dementia).

Methods: We performed a nested case-control study in a community-based cohort, the Circulatory Risk in Communities Study, involving 13,934 Japanese individuals aged 40-84 years at the baseline period of 1984-2005. Serum folate was measured in 578 cases of incident disabling dementia, and in 1,156 controls whose age (±1 years), sex, area of residence, and baseline year were matched with the cases. The diagnosis of disabling dementia was performed by attending physicians under the National Long-Term Care Insurance System in Japan. Conditional odds ratios of disabling dementia according to quintiles of serum folate were calculated using conditional logistic regression models.

Results: After a 20.8-year follow-up, serum folate was inversely associated with risk of disabling dementia. The respective multivariable odds ratios (95% CIs) were 0.71 (0.51-0.99), 0.76 (0.54-1.06), 0.70 (0.49-1.00), and 0.62 (0.43-0.90) for persons with the second, third, fourth, and highest quintiles of serum folate as compared with the lowest quintile (P for trend = 0.03). A similar association was observed for dementia with or without stroke.

Conclusion: In this nested case-control study with a long follow-up, low serum folate levels were associated with an increased risk of disabling dementia among Japanese individuals.

Keywords: Low serum folate; dementia; epidemiology; follow-up; population; ‌cognitive dysfunction; ‌folic acid; ‌nested case-control study‌.