Association Between Serum Adropin Levels and Cognitive Impairment in the Elderly: A Cross-Sectional Study

Despite promising data from rodent models demonstrating a link between adropin deficiency and cognitive dysfunction, in-depth examinations of such an association in humans are lacking. Accordingly, the present study investigated the relationship between serum adropin levels and cognitive function in a sample of elderly individuals.

This cross-sectional study included 90 elderly (≥ 65 years of age) participants from geriatric outpatient clinics at Mansoura University (Mansoura City, Egypt), who were classified with normal cognition, mild neurocognitive disorder/mild cognitive impairment, or major neurocognitive disorder/dementia according to criteria from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Psychiatric Disorders, Fifth Edition. Assessments included a comprehensive geriatric evaluation, cognitive testing, and measurement of serum adropin levels and metabolic parameters.

Multivariate regression (R²= 0.464) revealed that serum adropin (β = 3.09, p < 0.001), education ≥ 4 years (β = 1.47, p = 0.040), and total cholesterol level (β = -0.02, p = 0.004) were independently associated with Mini-Mental State Examination scores. Adropin levels ≤ 1.9 ng/mL yielded 90.2% sensitivity and 95.9% specificity for discriminating cognitive impairment (mild cognitive impairment and dementia), and ≤ 1.6 ng/mL specifically for dementia, with 83.3% sensitivity and 93.1% specificity.

Lower serum adropin levels were significantly associated with cognitive impairment in elderly individuals, with strong diagnostic discriminative ability (area under the receiver operating characteristic curve, 0.993). However, larger-scale longitudinal studies are required to establish causality and validate these findings.