Low blood levels of choline, a nutrient crucial for liver function, inflammation control and long‑term brain health, may be one of the ways obesity accelerates cognitive decline and raises the risk of Alzheimer’s disease, a new study has suggested. The research was conducted by scientists at Arizona State University and published in the journal Aging and Disease.
The team studied 30 young adults in their 20s and 30s, half with obesity and half of healthy weight, and analysed fasting blood samples for circulating choline, inflammatory cytokines, insulin and glucose, liver enzymes, other metabolic markers and neurofilament light chain (NfL), a protein released when nerve cells are damaged. Obese participants showed reduced blood choline levels that correlated with higher body fat, liver dysfunction markers, increased insulin resistance and elevated inflammatory cytokines, alongside higher NfL levels that were negatively correlated with choline and are known to be associated with cognitive decline in earlier studies.
These findings point to interlinked changes involving obesity, low choline, insulin resistance, systemic inflammation and NfL as key risk markers for Alzheimer’s disease, the authors said, while cautioning that their sample size was modest and did not include direct cognitive assessments. Lead researcher Ramon Velazquez from Arizona State University’s Banner Neurodegenerative Disease Research Center said the work “adds to the growing evidence that choline is a valuable marker of metabolic and brain dysfunction” and reinforces the importance of adequate daily intake, noting that other recent reports have tied reduced blood choline to anxiety, memory impairment and broader metabolic problems.
