Moderate dietary choline intake helps prevent dementia, enhance cognition

Moderate consumption of dietary choline, ranging from 332.89 to 353.93 mg/day, appears to reduce the likelihood of dementia and may even improve cognitive performance, suggests a study. 

A team of investigators identified diagnoses of dementia, Alzheimer’s disease (AD), and mild cognitive impairment (MCI) using the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-9/10). They also categorized dietary choline intake into quartiles of consumption based on 24-h dietary recalls and evaluated current cognitive performance using the computerized touchscreen interface.

The association between choline intake and dementia or cognitive performance was explored using Cox proportional hazards regression, logistic regression, and restricted cubic splines after adjusting for sociodemographic factors, dietary and lifestyle behaviours, and comorbid conditions.

A total of 125,594 participants (mean age 56.1 years, 55.8 percent female) were included. Over a median follow-up of 11.8 years, 1,103 cases of dementia were recorded, of which 385 were AD and 87 MCI.

Choline intake displayed U-shaped associations with dementia and AD. Participants in the second quartile of total choline intake showed a lower risk than those in the lowest quartile (dementia: hazard ratio [HR], 0.80, 95 percent confidence interval [CI], 0.67–0.96; AD: HR, 0.76, 95 percent CI, 0.58–1.00).

Moderate intake of choline derivatives, including free choline (HR, 0.77, 95 percent CI, 0.65–0.92), phosphatidylcholine (HR, 0.82, 95 percent CI, 0.68–0.98), sphingomyelin (HR, 0.82, 95 percent CI, 0.69–0.98), and glycerophosphocholine (HR, 0.83, 95 percent CI, 0.70–1.00) resulted in a reduced risk of dementia, ranging from 17 percent to 23 percent.

In addition, moderate total choline intake correlated with an 8-percent to 13-percent lower likelihood of poor cognitive performance in visual attention (OR, 0.92, 95 percent CI, 0.86–0.99), fluid intelligence (OR, 0.87, 95 percent CI, 0.82–0.92), and complex processing speed (OR, 0.90, 95 percent CI, 0.84–0.95).

“Choline, an essential nutrient, plays a critical role in cognition and may help prevent dementia and mild cognitive impairment,” the investigators said.