Increased brain volume from cereal, decreased brain volume from coffee -- shared genetic determinants and impacts on cognitive function, body mass index (BMI) and other metabolic measures: cohort study of UK Biobank participants

Kang, J.; Jia, T.; Jiao, Z.; Shen, C.; Xie, C.; Cheng, W.; Sahakian, B. J.; Waxman, D.; Feng, J.

Objective: To explore how different diets may affect human brain development and if genetic and environmental factors play a part. Design: Cohort study. Setting: UK Biobank data were collected from 22 centres across the UK. Participants: Only white British individuals free of Alzheimer's or dementia diseases were included in the study, where 336517 participants had quality-controlled genetic data, and 18879 participants had qualified brain MRI data. Main outcome measures: Grey matter volume, intake of cereal and coffee, body mass index and blood cholesterol level. Results: We investigated diet effects in the UK Biobank data and discovered anti-correlated brain-wide grey matter volume (GMV)-association patterns between coffee and cereal intake, coincidence with their anti-correlated genetic constructs. These genetic factors may further affect people's lifestyle habits and body/blood fat levels through the mediation of cereal/coffee intake, and the brain-wide expression pattern of gene CPLX3, a dedicated marker of subplate neurons that regulate cortical development and plasticity, may underlie the shared GMV-association patterns among the coffee/cereal intake and cognitive functions. Conclusions: Our findings revealed that high-cereal and low-coffee diets shared similar brain and genetic constructs, leading to long-term beneficial associations regarding cognitive, BMI and other metabolic measures. This study has important implications for public health, especially during the pandemic, given the poorer outcomes of COVID-19 patients with greater BMIs.