Lipids and adipokines as risk factors for Alzheimer's disease.

To determine if measures of adipokines and other blood lipids differentiate between normal controls and persons with Alzheimer's disease (AD), we examined levels of leptin, adiponectin, total cholesterol, high density lipoproteins (HDL), calculated low density lipoproteins (LDL), triglycerides and apolipoprotein E allele status in 148 early AD subjects and 198 normal controls. We were unable to demonstrate a significant difference between leptin and adiponectin levels between normal controls and AD subjects. We were able to confirm observations of lower HDL and higher total and LDL cholesterol concentration in AD subjects than in controls. As expected, the presence of the apolipoprotein E4 allele distinguished between the two groups.