Supplemental Funding Request for RF1 AG062309 Early life glycemic status and Alzheimer's disease neuroimaging markers in middle age: the Bogalusa Heart Study

The parent study (R01AG062309) examines associations between lifespancardiometabolic exposures and midlife brain structure and function, as well as midlifecognitive function, in the bi-racial, semi-rural Bogalusa Heart Study (BHS). Theimportance of the main study is that it clarifies which cardiometabolic exposuresinfluence the brain health of a socioeconomically diverse group of African American andwhite individuals at the portion of the lifespan (the 50s and early 60s) when cognitiveand brain health begins to become more heterogeneous and begins to include clinically-significant cognitive decline in a large number of persons. This supplement adds threeadditional cardiometabolic exposures to the set of exposures we will examine: suddenreductions in physical activity, diet quality, and sleep quality caused by Covid-19 relatedhome confinement. BHS participants will receive the same set of diet, physical activity,and sleep questionnaires that are assessed at each of their prior BHS study visits, alongwith a new survey specifically designed to identify Covid19-related changes. There is anextreme time urgency to assessing such confinement-related sudden lifestyle changes:BHS participants are confined to the home now, and are therefore able to assess theirown confinement-related lifestyle changes now, rather than rely on error-prone recall ofdistal events. The supplement significantly enhances the parent study by providing dataon exactly the sort of sudden, event-driven cardiometabolic changes that are importantto long-term outcomes, but are typically missed by a longitudinal cohort study such asBHS, whose structure lends itself to measuring slowly-varying changes over the courseof years. The supplement could clarify the importance of such sudden lifestyle changesto long-term health, relative to such slowly time-varying changes. In so doing, thesupplement could clarify the importance of rapidly deploying lifestyle interventions tohome-confined individuals to support high diet quality, physical activity attainment,and sleep quality in the event of a future pandemic.