The global prevalence of dementia has risen exponentially with the aging population, and cognitive decline is also heavily influenced by chronic inflammation. This inflammation often results from lifestyle factors such as poor diet, lack of exercise, and chronic conditions like diabetes.
Our Associate Professor, Dr. Ma Suk Ling, led her research team to identify promising target markers from publicly available datasets and assemble an inflammation-related marker panel. Based on the experimental results from our laboratory, we developed the Inflammation-related Cognitive Risk Score (ICRS), a composite measure designed to predict cognitive decline by weighting different inflammatory markers and providing a single, easy-to-understand score.
Our findings revealed that ICRS values were significantly higher in older adults without cognitive decline compared to those with cognitive decline. The results suggest that ICRS may serve as a feasible tool for the early screening of cognitive decline, providing a critical window for timely intervention.
From Lab to Life: Personalized Dementia Prevention through blood-based inflammatory biomarkers
