Poster Presentations P3S466

estimate the prevalence of dementia and its clinical subtypes among north-

erners aged 55 years or older and to examine associations with age, gender,

and laboratory test. Methods: A simple cross-sectional descriptive study was

carried out in Medicine department, Ahmadu Bello university teaching hos-

pital, Zaria, Kaduna Nigeria. Of 147 people screened with a vernacular adap-

tation of the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE), all those scoring at or

below the cut-off of 23 were further evaluated. Diagnostic laboratory test in-

vestigations were employed to analyze serum samples tested for HIV anti-

bodies using two sequential rapid HIV tests and one ELISA confirmatory

test kit as recommended by the Nigerian Federal Ministry of Health series

algorithm for rapid HIV testing. Results: A total of 147 patients were

screened with the vernacular adaptation of MMSE comprising of 82%

male and 18 female with a mean age of 62.2 6 4.4. The prevalence of demen-

tia was 34.1%.The condition was early(mild) in 24.5%, middle(moderate) in

68%, and late(severe) in 7.5%.Of the subjects with dementia, 32% had vas-

cular dementia, 1.4% had AIDS-related dementia, and 0.7% had senile

dementia. Age and low education was significantly associated with dementia.

Conclusions: The prevalence of dementia among study group was high and

dementia is an important health problem of the elderly population with intel-

lectual disability. Age and low education are strongly associated with demen-

tia. Identification of risk factors points towards the possibility of prevention

P3-058 POPULATION HISTORY, STARVATION AND

ALZHEIMER’S DISEASE

Amalia G. Diaconeasa1,2, Luiza Spiru2, Ileana Turcu3, 1Qeme Proiect,

Bucharest, Romania; 2‘‘Ana Aslan’’ International Academy of Aging,

Bucharest, Romania; 3Ana Aslan International Academy of Aging, Bu-

charest, Romania. Contact e-mail: ama99dia@gmail.com

Background: There are some hypothesis that link type II diabetes incidence

with the starvation or particular food habits in a population history. Popula-

tions exposed earlier to agriculture (e.g, Europeans), i.e, to a diet rich in car-

bohydrates for a longer time, have a lower incidence of this disease as

compared to the populations that began to practice agriculture later (e.g.,

Pima). Taking into account that cholesterol is an important metabolite, espe-

cially for the brain and during the development, and that the normal cells’

capacity of synthesizing cholesterol is altered during starvation, it can be pre-

dicted that the genes able to maintain a higher cholesterol level during starva-

tion are positively selected and their incidence should be higher in the

populations with a longer history of starvation. The variant e4 (ApoE4) of

the apolipoprotein ApoE, associated with a higher LDL level, could play

such a role. On the other side, a higher cholesterol level, associated or not

to e4 genotype is a risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease. Methods: In order

to test the hypothesis above, the average cholesterol level and the relative

ApoE frequency in different human population were compared based on

the meta-analysis of certain data reported in the literature. Results: The inci-

dence of e4 variant varies between 10-20% in general, being higher in the

Asian and African aborigenes, 25-45%. This variant is very rare in the Eskimo

populations. On the other hand, the variant e2, associated with a low incidence

of Alzheimer’s disease and a low LDL, is almost absent in some Asian and

African populations. An interesting aspect is that the frequency of the

ApoE4 allele is 10-15% in southern European populations, but raises to 40-

50% in northern Europe. Conclusions: The data suggest that the populations

that had no stability in the food supplies or had a diet poor in lipids tend to have

a higher frequency of the allele e4. Alzheimer’s disease could result from an

antagonistic pleiotropy, the genes involved in this risk being advantageous

some time, but they become deleterious later in life, when escaping the selec-

tion. This conclusion can conduct to therapeutic and prevention strategies.

P3-059 WEIGHT VARIATION IN MIDLIFE IS ASSOCIATED

WITH INCREASED RISK OF DEMENTIA THREE

DECADES LATER

Uri Goldbourt1, Michal Schnaider-Beeri2, 1Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv,

Israel; 2Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York City, NY, USA.Contact e-mail: michal.berri@mssm.edu

Background: Measures of overweight and obesity have been implicated

in the epidemiology of vascular disease. Whether mid-life weight and its

variance are associated with declining cognitive function remains largely

unknown. Methods: We studied the association between body weight

variability resulting form 3 successive weight recordings, taken from

10,000 tenured civil servants and municipal employee males, aged 40-

65 years in 1963, and the prevalence of dementia 36-37 years later.

This was examined in approximately one sixth of them, who survived

until 1999/2000 (minimum age 76 years) and underwent an evaluation

of their cognitive status using screening by the Telephone Interview

for Cognitive Status-modified and established dementia assessment tools.

Weight variation was defined as the between-exam SD, representing

weight variation over three examinations in 1963, 1965 and 1968. Re-

sults: We could not trace a pattern of increasing or declining late-life

dementia prevalence among surviving men with ‘‘lean’’ (BMI<20 Kg/

sqM, 23.6%), ‘‘desirable’’ weight (BMI ¼ 20 to 24.99 Kg/sqM,

17.7%), overweight (25-29.99 Kg/sqM, 17.6%) and obese counterparts

(BMI> ¼ 30kd/sqM, 23.0%), p ¼ 0.42. Survivors’ dementia prevalence

rates in quartiles of weight variation, however, based on 4863 measure-

ments in 1621 survivors who had participated in all three exams, yielded

prevalence rates of 13.4, 18.3, 20.1 and 19.2% in the first to fourth quar-

tiles, respectively (Z ¼ 2.12, p ¼ 0.034 in non-parametric trend test).

Multivariate analysis of odds ratios associated with each of the quartiles

of weight variation adjusted for diabetes mellitus, body height and socio-

economic status. The adjusted odds were 1.42, 1.59 and 1.74, respec-

tively, for quartiles 2, 3 and 4. A trend test for these rates yielded

z ¼ 2.17, p ¼ 0.032. Additional adjustment for initial (1963) weight,

blood pressure, serum cholesterol and smoking habits had a negligible

effect on the results. The area under the ROC curve for this model

was 0.73 and the Hosmer-Lemeshow model fit test yielded chi2 (8) ¼6.77 (associated P ¼ 0.56), consistent with adequate model fit. Conclu-

sions: This is, to our knowledge, the first study indicating that smaller

late-life dementia prevalence is associated importantly with small mid-

life weight variation. Mechanisms linking weight instability at mid-life

etiologically to increased risk for dementia remain unknown. The

presented association marks a research topic with putatively long-term

public health interest.

P3-060 CAROTID ARTERY ATHEROSCLEROSIS IS

ASSOCIATED WITH ALZHEIMER DISEASE AND

VASCULAR DEMENTIA: A POSTMORTEM STUDY

Claudia K. Suemoto1, Lea T. Grinberg2, Renata E. L. Ferretti3,

Paulo R. Menezes4, Jose M. Farfel1, Renata E. P. Leite5, Katia C. Oliveira5,

Edilaine Tampellini5, Wilson Jacob-Filho1, Ricardo Nitrini6,

Carlos A. Pasqualucci5 Brazilian Aging Brain Study Group 1Department of

Geriatrics, University of Sao Paulo Medical School, Sao Paulo, Brazil;2Memory and Aging Center, Department of Neurology, UCSF, San Fran-cisco, CA, USA; 3Department of Geriatric, University of Sao Paulo Medical

School, Sao Paulo, Brazil; 4Department of Preventive Medicine, University

of Sao Paulo Medical School, Sao Paulo, Brazil; 5Department of Pathology,

University of Sao Paulo Medical School, Sao Paulo, Brazil; 6Department ofNeurology, University of Sao Paulo Medical School, Sao Paulo, Brazil.

Contact e-mail: cksuemoto@usp.br

Background: In the last decade, evidence has shown cardiovascular dis-

ease to be associated with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and vascular demen-

tia (VaD). Cerebral hypoperfusion has been implicated as a possible

mechanism explaining these associations. Carotid artery atherosclerosis

may be a marker of dementia-associated hypoperfusion.Objective: To in-

vestigate the relationship between pathologically-proven carotid artery

atherosclerosis and the presence of AD and VaD, confirmed by neuropath-

ological examination. Methods: 249 autopsy-verified subjects older than

50 years of age, drawn from the Brain Bank of the BABSG, were submit-

ted to neuropathological examination using immunohistochemistry. The

diagnoses were AD (n ¼ 43), VaD (n ¼ 42) and controls (n ¼ 164).