• Ding-Yuan Tian, Jun Wang, Bin-Lu Sun, Zhen Wang, Wei Xu, Yang Chen, Ying-Ying Shen, Hui-Yun Li, Dong-Wan Chen, Fa-Ying Zhou, Xu Yi, Gui-Hua Zeng, Zhi-Qiang Xu, Li-Yong Chen, Jin-Tai Yu, and Yan-Jiang Wang.
• Department of Neurology and Clinical Center for Neuroscience, Daping Hospital, Third Military Medical University, Chongqing 400042, China.
• Chin. Med. J. 2020 Dec 21; 134 (2): 173177173-177.

BackgroundRecent studies suggest that a healthy diet helps to prevent the development of Alzheimer disease (AD). This study aimed to investigate whether spicy food consumption is associated with cognition and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) biomarkers of AD in the Chinese population.MethodsWe enrolled 55 AD patients and 55 age- and gender-matched cognitively normal (CN) subjects in a case-control study, as well as a cohort of 131 participants without subjective cognitive decline (non-AD) in a cross-sectional study. Spicy food consumption was assessed using the Food Frequency Questionnaire (FFQ). Associations of FFQ scores with cognition and CSF biomarkers of AD were analyzed.ResultsIn the case-control study, spicy food consumption was lower in AD patients than that in CNs (4.0 [4.0-8.0] vs. 8.0 [4.5-10.0], P < 0.001); FFQ scores were positively associated with Mini-Mental Status Examination scores in the total sample (r = 0.218, P = 0.014). In the cross-sectional study, the association between spicy food consumption and cognition levels was verified in non-AD subjects (r = 0.264, P = 0.0023). Moreover, higher FFQ scores were significantly associated with higher β-Amyloid (1-42) (Aβ42) levels and lower phospho-tau/Aβ42 and total tau/Aβ42 ratios in the CSF of non-AD subjects (P < 0.05).ConclusionSpicy food consumption is closely related to higher cognition levels and reversed AD biomarkers in the CSF, suggesting that a capsaicin-rich diet might have the potential to modify the cognitive status and cerebral pathologies associated with AD.Copyright © 2020 The Chinese Medical Association, produced by Wolters Kluwer, Inc. under the CC-BY-NC-ND license.

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