E4 interaction with a High Carb Diet

[Julie G]

Combination of apolipoprotein E4 and high carbohydrate diet reduces hippocampal BDNF and arc levels and impairs memory in young mice.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22836186

We've seen plenty of studies with human subjects suggesting that a high carb diet (HCD) leads to cognitive impairment, but this is the first (to my knowledge) that actually studied the effect of a HCD on e4s as compared to e3s...albeit on our mousie friends

"Our results indicate that HCD compromises memory processes in apoE4 mice. ApoE4 mice on HCD showed decreased activity-regulated cytoskeletal-associated protein (Arc) and brain derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) levels, as well as decreased BDNF signaling in the hippocampus. In contrast, apoE3 mice were resistant to the deleterious effects of HCD on both behavior and memory-related proteins. Our results support the hypothesis that already in mid-life, genetic, and environmental risk factors act together on the mechanisms behind cognitive impairment."

[Gilgamesh]

Thanks Julie!

Have you, or has anyone, read the full paper? The abstract doesn't contain a "methods" section, so we don't whether the diets were isocaloric. This means -- I am not going to stop making this point, sorry! -- that we can't tell from the abstract whether it was dietary constituents, or higher caloric intake on the HCD that produced the observed effect....

GB

[Julie G]

No, I didn't have access. I have lots more questions too- in terms of other macronutrient ratios. I'd love to learn more.

[James]

I'm willing to bet the high-carb diet is really high-sugar or a Westernized mix. Regular lab chow is very high carb and low fat, and ApoE-/- and ApoE4 rats seem to do just fine on it compared to those other diets.

My university doesn't have a subscription to this journal so I requested it and should have it in a few days. I'll comment on the diet then.

[Julie G]

Great, thanks James. You could be absolutely right. I'm anxious to learn more.

[James]

I finally got this delivered. Unfortunately, all the full-text says is:

The pups were suckled by mothers fed with different diets and at 3 weeks of age (after weaning) they were treated for 6 months with either normal diet (ND) (Mucedola s.r.l., Milano) or HCD containing 70% carbohydrates (Mucedola s.r.l., Milano).

There's no telling which diet it could be, and it could be custom.
http://www.mucedola.it/Product/ProductServices.aspx

[circular]

This means -- I am not going to stop making this point, sorry! -- that we can't tell from the abstract whether it was dietary constituents, or higher caloric intake on the HCD that produced the observed effect....

GB

Thanks for making the point again Gilgamesh. I'm too busy to read all the threads so hadn't seen where you've done this before. A helpful thing to keep in mind.

[SpunkyPup]

low carb..

just about all the studies mention even low carb are just lower carb than a SAD I think is 60-70% carbs!!
so you have to read each one and try to find the data and check it for yourself.

Here is a low carb vegan if that is an oxymoronic idea!

http://www.longecity.org/forum/topic/58 ... poprofile/

[Gilgamesh]

This means -- I am not going to stop making this point, sorry! -- that we can't tell from the abstract whether it was dietary constituents, or higher caloric intake on the HCD that produced the observed effect....

GB

Thanks for making the point again Gilgamesh. I'm too busy to read all the threads so hadn't seen where you've done this before. A helpful thing to keep in mind.

Circular-

Thanks. These discussions of dietary constituents with no mention of energy content aren't very helpful to me. But it doesn't mean others aren't helped.

Analogy: I feel like I'm in a discussion with people talking about how switching from a street bike to a mountain bike (or vice versa in some cases) altered their cardiac risk profile. Everyone's discussing theories involving the weight of the mountain bike, the shape of the seat, the gear ratios, etc. But no one is bothering to count how many minutes they exercise on each kind of bike. And other studies show that people tend to exercise more when they own a mountain bike, because it's more fun (let's say, for the sake of the example). Gear ratios and seat shapes are irrelevant: buy a mountain bike, you exercise more. Exercise improves cardiac risk profile! This doesn't alter the fact that switching to the mountain bike helps, but it does mean that people can just exercise more on their street bike and have the same effect, because it's the amount of exercise that matters, not "bike constituents". We would need "iso-biking" comparisons to know whether "bike constituents" matter, just like we need iso-caloric comparisons to know whether dietary constituents matter.

Sorry if I'm being too serious for folks here. Just trying to isolate the true independent variable -- or, more likely, one of them. (My working hypothesis is most certainly not that dietary constituents do not matter at all!)

Going offline for a while. Be well everyone!

GB

P.S. About testosterone and diet:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20096034

[circular]

Gilamesh, that's a very good point. It's similar to one I made recently in another thread about the possibility that the free radical load generated by eating more carbs (whatever amount that is) might be offset by an extremely high phytonutrient/antioxidant diet, akin to what's described in the book Eating on the Wild Side. I think this may be as important as caloric intake, since early humans probably had both: higher phyto/antioxidant load and lower caloric intake.