Objective: To identify changes of blood markers of oxidative stress among demented and healthy aged persons, to compare levels of peripheral markers of oxidative stress between Alzheimer's dementia (AD) and vascular dementia (VD), and finally to analyze factors affecting it.
Design: Some antioxidants had been known to reduce the risk of dementia, while increase of 4-hydroxy-nonenal and decrease of heme oxygenase in AD had been reported. Recently increased free radical activities were also found in VD. Therefore, this study tried to search for a blood markers to discriminate AD and VD.
Materials and Methods: The blood levels of total antioxidant capacity (TAC) and catalase activity of 50 patients with AD and 50 patients with VD were compared with those of 50 healthy aged controls. In addition, variables including risk factors of dementia, degree of dementia measured by MMSE, Hasegawa Dementia Scale, GDS and CDR, and activities of daily living were also assessed.
Results:
1) The levels of TAC were significantly lower in dementia than normal aged controls, while the catalase activities were significantly higher in dementia than controls.
2) The TAC levels were significantly lower while the catalase significantly higher in AD than VD.
3) The TAC and catalase activities were significantly correlated with the severity of dementia (MMSE, GDS and CDR) and CVD risk factors (alcoholism, hyperlipidemia, cardiac disease, stroke, and hypertension).
Conclusion: Peripheral blood markers of oxidative stress were significantly different in dementia from normal aged controls. Furthermore, the difference was more severe in AD than VD. Therefore, they might be clinically useful to assess and discriminate dementia.
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