IU School of Public Health-Bloomington receives grant to study Alzheimer’s disease

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IU School of Public Health-Bloomington receives grant to study Alzheimer’s diseaseJan. 24, 2017More than five million Americans, or one of every nine seniors over 65, suffers from Alzheimer’s disease at a cost of $226 billion annually, according to the Alzheimer’s Association. While we know that Alzheimer’s develops following changes in the brain, science has not yet determined many modifiable risk factors.                                                                               “From research that’s been done to date, we believe that an individual’s genes, environment, and lifestyle can all play a role in relation to the development of Alzheimer’s,” says Ka He, M.D., Sc.D., professor and chair of the Epidemiology and Biostatistics department at the Indiana University School of Public Health-Bloomington.
 To help explore environmental factors in the development of Alzheimer’s, He, along with Jiu-Chiuan Chen at the University of Southern California, recently received a $4 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to investigate environmental determinants and mechanistic pathways leading to the risk of Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias in older women. As the site principal investigator at IU Bloomington, He’s group will create a dietary pattern and define the Mediterranean-DASH Intervention for Neurogenerative Delay (MIND) dietary pattern. In addition, He’s team will examine how the dietary pattern relates to geographic disparities in Alzheimer’s disease risk.
 “In the newest epidemiological data, we’re seeing that diet may affect a person’s probability of developing Alzheimer’s,” He says. “By completing this study, we will work to better understand geographic disparities in Alzheimer’s disease, and generate new knowledge about healthy diets that may reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s later in life.”
 Through 2021, He, along with key investigator Assistant Scientist Pengcheng Xun at the IU School of Public Health-Bloomington, and Chen will work together on this study to bring new research and thinking to the increasing prevalence of ...

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