Leo Sher, M.D.

A group of researchers from Brazil examined whether serum uric acid levels are associated with cognitive performance in apparently healthy middle-aged participants in the Brazilian Longitudinal Study of Adult Health (ElSA-Brasil) (1). The researchers reported the results of their study in a paper, “Serum uric acid is associated with better executive function in men but not in women: Baseline assessment of the ELSA-Brasil study” published in Experimental Gerontology (1). ELSA-Brasil is designed to study the development and progression of clinical and subclinical chronic diseases (2).

Cross-sectional data on 6751 women and 5464 men were analyzed (1). Mean age was about 50 years for both men and women. Mean serum uric acid levels were 4.75 (SD 1.16) mg/dL in women and 6.44 (SD 1.39) mg/dL in men. The authors observed that in middle-aged individuals, higher serum uric acid levels are associated with better performance on an executive function test in men, but not in women in the ELSA-Brasil cohort study. The authors suggest that this could be an indicator of a sex-specific effect of serum uric acid levels on cognitive performance.

References

1.Baena CP, Suemoto CK, Barreto SM, Lotufo PA, Benseñor I. Serum uric acid is associated with better executive function in men but not in women: Baseline assessment of the ELSA-Brasil study. Exp Gerontol 2017;92:82-86.

2.Aquino EM, Barreto SM, Bensenor IM, Carvalho MS, Chor D, Duncan BB, Lotufo PA, Mill JG, Molina Mdel C, Mota EL, Passos VM, Schmidt MI, Szklo M. Brazilian Longitudinal Study of Adult Health (ELSA-Brasil): objectives and design. Am J Epidemiol 2012;175(4):315-24.