One-Carbon Metabolism Biomarkers and Risks of Incident Neurocognitive Disorder among Cognitively Normal Older Adults

There is a lack of evidence supporting an association between folate and vitamin B12 exposure with cognitive outcomes. We examined serum folate and vitamin B12 and plasma homocysteine in 690 cognitively-normal adults (aged >= 55) from the Singapore Longitudinal Aging Study (SLAS-2) followed-up over 4.5 years on incident neurocognitive disorder (NCD): mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and dementia. At follow-up, 5.7% (39) of participants developed NCD (34 MCI and 5 dementia). Comparing with those who remained cognitively-normal, participants progressed to NCD had significantly lower mean baseline vitamin B12 (420 [SD +/- 221] vs. 510 [SD +/- 290] pmol/L, p = 0.026), higher homocysteine (14.6 [SD +/- 4.2] vs. 12.9 [SD +/- 4.3], p = 0.018) and lower one-carbon index (Z-scores: -0.444 [SD +/- 0.819] vs. -0.001 [SD +/- 0.990], p = 0.006). Adjusted for confounders, significant associations with incident NCD were found for lower vitamin B12 (per-SD OR = 2.10, 95%CI = 1.26-3.52), higher homocysteine (per-SD OR = 1.96, 95%CI = 1.18-3.24) and lower one-carbon index (per-SD OR = 1.67, 95%CI = 1.06-2.64). Folate was not significantly associated with progression to NCD. Notably, low B12 in the presence of high folate was significantly associated with incident NCD (adjusted OR = 3.81, 95%CI = 1.04-13.9). Low B12, high homocysteine, low B12 in the presence of high folate, and a one-carbon index of hypo-methylation were independently associated with progression to NCD among cognitively normal.

Automated summary

There is a lack of evidence supporting the association between folate and vitamin B12 exposure with cognitive outcomes. However, this study found that low vitamin B12 levels, high homocysteine levels, and a hypo-methylation one-carbon index are significantly associated with the progression to neurocognitive disorder among cognitively-normal adults.