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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Aging Neurosci.
Sec. Alzheimer's Disease and Related Dementias
Volume 17 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fnagi.2025.1502154
This article is part of the Research Topic Blood, Cerebrospinal Fluid, and Vascular Biomarkers for Dementia View all 13 articles
Associations of Varicose Veins with Cerebrospinal Fluid Biomarkers of Alzheimer's Disease Pathologies in Adults without Dementia: the CABLE Study
Provisionally accepted- 1 Department of Neurology, Qingdao Municipal Hospital, Qingdao, Shandong Province, China
- 2 Dalian Medical University, Dalian, Liaoning, China
- 3 Department of Neurology, Qingdao Municipal Hospital, Qingdao University, Qingdao 266071, China., Qingdao, Shandong Province, China
Background: Previous studies have found a correlation between varicose veins (VVs) and cognitive decline, and individuals with VVs have a higher prevalence of Alzheimer's disease (AD). However, the associations between VVs and the core pathologies of AD have not yet been investigated. The research was designed to analyze the relationships between VVs and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) biomarkers of AD pathologies.We included 1,298 participants from the Chinese Alzheimer's Biomarker and LifestylE (CABLE) database without dementia. Multiple linear regression (MLR) model was applied to assess the relationships between the VVs and CSF AD biomarkers. Then, we conducted subgroup analyses according to age, gender, education levels and apolipoprotein E genotype ε4 (APOE-ε4) carrier status. Additionally, mediation effects were assessed using causal mediation analyses with 10,000 bootstrapped iterations.In total subjects, VVs had negative correlations with CSF Aβ42 (β= -0.157, p= 0.038) and CSF Aβ42/Aβ40 ratio (β= -0.272, p ＜ 0.001), as well as positive correlations with CSF Aβ40 (β= 0.170, p= 0.024), CSF p-tau (β= 0.192, p= 0.008), CSF t-tau/Aβ42 ratio (β= 0.190, p= 0.011), and CSF p-tau/Aβ42 ratio (β= 0.248, p= 0.001), after adjusting for age, sex, education levels and APOE-ε4 carrier status. Subgroup analyses demonstrated that the relations between VVs and CSF AD biomarkers were more significant in female, mid-life adults (40-65 years), less-educated individuals and APOE-ε4 non-carriers. Moreover, CSF Aβ42/Aβ40 ratio might be a partial mediator of the association between VVs and p-tau pathology.Our study found correlations between VVs and CSF AD biomarkers, suggesting that VVs may be a potential risk factor for the development of AD.
Keywords: Alzheimer's disease, Dementia, Varicose Veins, biomarkers, Inflammation
Received: 26 Sep 2024; Accepted: 14 Feb 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Liu, MA, Li, Huang, Hu, Tan and Hu. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Min Liu, Department of Neurology, Qingdao Municipal Hospital, Qingdao, 266011, Shandong Province, China
Liang-Yu Huang, Department of Neurology, Qingdao Municipal Hospital, Qingdao University, Qingdao 266071, China., Qingdao, Shandong Province, China
He-Ying Hu, Department of Neurology, Qingdao Municipal Hospital, Qingdao University, Qingdao 266071, China., Qingdao, Shandong Province, China
Lan Tan, Department of Neurology, Qingdao Municipal Hospital, Qingdao University, Qingdao 266071, China., Qingdao, Shandong Province, China
Hao Hu, Department of Neurology, Qingdao Municipal Hospital, Qingdao University, Qingdao 266071, China., Qingdao, Shandong Province, China
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