Greater Neighborhood Disadvantage Tied to Inflammatory, Alzheimer Disease Biomarkers

THURSDAY, July 3, 2025 (HealthDay News) — Greater neighborhood disadvantage is associated with increased inflammatory and Alzheimer disease (AD) cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) biomarkers in older adults, according to a study published online June 25 in Neurology.

Marissa A. Gogniat, Ph.D., from the Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee, and colleagues examined how neighborhood disadvantage relates to core AD pathology, neurodegeneration, and inflammatory biomarkers in community-dwelling older adults who underwent fasting blood and CSF acquisition serially during a nine-year follow-up period. Seventeen components were used to quantify the Area Deprivation Index (ADI), representing neighborhood disadvantage at baseline, with higher values indicating greater disadvantage.

Data were included from 334 participants from relatively less disadvantaged neighborhoods on average (ADI national decile, 33 ± 25). The researchers found a cross-sectional association for greater neighborhood disadvantage at study entry with elevated CSF chitinase-3-like protein 1 and tau (β = 0.7 and 1.8, respectively) after excluding outliers. Faster longitudinal increases in plasma high-sensitivity C-reactive protein were seen in relation to greater neighborhood disadvantage at study entry (β = 0.005).

“We found that greater neighborhood disadvantage was associated with greater levels of tau, a key biomarker of Alzheimer disease,” coauthor Angela L. Jefferson, Ph.D., also from Vanderbilt University Medical Center, said in a statement. “This observation suggests that living in more disadvantaged neighborhoods may result in more stressful exposures that drive neurodegeneration, resulting in an increased risk for developing Alzheimer disease.”

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