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Dairy, soy, and calcium consumption and risk of cognitive impairment: the Singapore Chinese Health Study

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Abstract

Purpose

It is unclear if midlife consumption of dairy and soy food intake, and their components of calcium and isoflavones (in soy), is related to cognitive impairment in elderly.

Methods

We used baseline data on lifestyle and habitual diet of 16,948 participants collected during their recruitment into the Singapore Chinese Health Study from 1993 to 1998, and data on their cognitive function, measured using a 30-item Singapore modified Mini-Mental State Examination, during follow-up interviews from 2014 to 2016. We used multivariable logistic regression models to estimate the odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for developing cognitive impairment.

Results

Higher dairy intake was associated with a lower risk of cognitive impairment in a dose-dependent manner (P for trend = 0.009). Compared to the lowest quartile of dairy intake, ORs (95% CIs) were 0.93 (0.81–1.07) for the second, 0.88 (0.76–1.01) for the third, and 0.82 (0.72–0.94) for the fourth quartiles of intake. Similar results were found for dairy calcium intake (P for trend = 0.008). However, there was no statistically significant association for intake of soy (OR comparing extreme quartiles 0.99, 95% CI 0.87–1.14, P for trend = 0.92), isoflavones (OR 1.01, 95% CI 0.88–1.15, P for trend = 0.90) or non-dairy calcium (OR 1.06, 95% CI 0.86–1.30, P for trend = 0.81) with risk of cognitive impairment.

Conclusions

Dairy intake at midlife could have a protective association against cognitive impairment that may not be attributed to its calcium content alone, while soy or isoflavone intake was not associated with the cognition of elderly in our study.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Siew-Hong Low of the National University of Singapore for supervising the fieldwork in the Singapore Chinese Health Study and Renwei Wang for the maintenance of the cohort study database. Finally, we acknowledge the founding Principal Investigator of the Singapore Chinese Health Study, Mimi C. Yu.

Funding

This work was supported by the Singapore National Medical Research Council (NMRC/CSA/0055/2013) and the United States National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health (UM1 CA182876 and R01 CA144034), and the Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health, National University of Singapore. M Talaei is supported by Cambridge-NUHS Seed Fund (NUHSRO/2017/015/Cambridge/01). A Pan is supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (2017YFC0907504). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. National University Health System (NUHS) Centre for Healthy Ageing, Singapore, Singapore

    Mohammad Talaei

  2. Department of Biochemistry, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore

    Mohammad Talaei

  3. Department of Psychological Medicine, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore

    Lei Feng

  4. Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences, UPMC Hillman Cancer Center, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, USA

    Jian-Min Yuan

  5. Department of Epidemiology, Graduate School of Public Health, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, USA

    Jian-Min Yuan

  6. Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, MOE Key Lab of Environment and Health, School of Public Health, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, Hubei, China

    An Pan

  7. Health Services and Systems Research, Duke-NUS Medical School, Singapore, Singapore

    Woon-Puay Koh

  8. Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore

    Woon-Puay Koh

  9. Centre for Primary Care and Public Health, Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry, Queen Mary University of London, London, UK

    Mohammad Talaei

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  1. Mohammad Talaei
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  2. Lei Feng
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  3. Jian-Min Yuan
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Contributions

MT: analyzed data and wrote the first draft; WPK, AP, and LF: designed and conducted the study; WPK, JMY, AP, LF: assisted in interpreting the data and critically edited the manuscript; WPK supervised data analysis and had primary responsibility for final content. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Mohammad Talaei or Woon-Puay Koh.

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None to be declared. On behalf of all authors, the corresponding author states that there is no conflict of interest.

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Talaei, M., Feng, L., Yuan, JM. et al. Dairy, soy, and calcium consumption and risk of cognitive impairment: the Singapore Chinese Health Study. Eur J Nutr 59, 1541–1552 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00394-019-02010-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00394-019-02010-8

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