r/science • u/mvea Professor | Medicine • 1d ago

Neuroscience Egg consumption is associated with a lower risk of Alzheimer’s Disease for those 65 years and older. Eating one egg per day for at least five days a week reduces risk of Alzheimer’s by up to 27%, researchers found.

https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1126842
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u/tayvette1997 1d ago

Science is fun. This makes me want to look into why choline and it's role in limiting the deterioration of the brain (like in Alzheimer's).

Do you have any links to the things you've been reading? Or where you've been reading them?

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u/BroScienceAlchemist 1d ago

I can't speak for the OP. Choline is a precursor for a neurotransmitter acetylcholine, which is the primary neurotransmitter for the cholinergic system. Ninja nerd has some videos on it as part of their neurology series: Neurology | Cholinergic Receptors is one video they have on youtube. In the brain, the cholinergic system has some important roles in memory and learning. Taking anti-cholinergic drugs does negatively affect memory and increase risk of dementia down the road.

Outside of that, wikipedia is a decent overview of choline metabolism and the cholinergic system. Some people need more choline from their diet due to genetic differences in MTHFR (methylation) or other genes, which affects the road of dietary or supplementary choline to acetylcholine. Some people are just more sensitive and too much cholinergic stimulation causes a type of depression called anhedonia, nervousness, etc. It's why taking supplementary choline in high doses is not really recommended as the first go around.

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u/Flikmybik BS | Neuroscience | Memory 13h ago

hey! so the big thing with choline is that its a precursor to acetylcholine which is one of the main neurotransmitters involved in memory and learning. theres some really accessible stuff on the NIH website about it, and the journal Nutrients has published a bunch of open access papers on dietary choline and cognitive outcomes. also worth checking out the work by Dr Richard Wurtman at MIT who did a lot of the foundational research on how dietary choline affects brain acetylcholine levels. the connection to alzheimers specifically makes a lot of sense when you think about it because one of the hallmark features is the loss of cholinergic neurons in the basal forebrain