The role of kidney function in the association between pro- inflammatory diet and cognitive impairment: NHANES from 2011 - 2014

Abstract

Abstract Aims: It has been well known that the higher inflammation levels are associated with the higher risk of cognitive impairment. Therefore, a high pro-inflammation diet may increase the risk of cognitive impairment by inducing the body’s inflammation process. At the same time, chronic kidney disease (CKD) is also a common risk factor of the cognitive impairment, in this article, we try to investigate if the kidney function or CKD plays a mediating role between pro-inflammation diet and cognitive impairment. Methods and results: Data for this study were acquired from NHANES database, and 3124 participants were enrolled based on the dietary inflammation index (DII) and some essential cognitive tests such as the AF, CERAD-WL, CERAD-DR, and DSST. Subgroup analysis, trend analysis, and logistic regression were used to evaluate the correlation between DII and cognitive impairment. The study found that mean DII score was higher in those with cognitive impairment than those with normal cognition, the logistic regression revealed that high DII was associated with the cognitive impairment, and the proportion of individuals with cognitive impairment increased gradually as the DII level increased (p. trend < 0.001). Further mediation analysis was performed to investigate whether CKD mediates the association between cognitive impairment and pro-inflammatory diets, and revealed that the influence of DII on cognitive impairment was partially due to the indirection effect through kidney function, the indirection effect was -0.015(29.9% of the total effect value) Conclusion: Pro-inflammatory diet (high DII) is associated with cognitive impairment, and this association is partially mediated by CKD.