Demographics of the sample.

This study was designed to investigate the relationship between a systematic inflammatory biomarker measure, concurrent and later cognitive performance, and future dementia risk. The literature has reported the potential involvement of inflammation in cognitive performance as well as Alzheimer’s Disease, but not consistently. We used a population-based cohort of 500,000 people in the UK and assessed the association between a composite inflammatory biomarker and cognitive performance measures across five domains measured concurrently and 4–13 years later, taking advantage of the large sample size. We also assessed the same biomarker’s association with dementia diagnosis 3–11 years later in the initially dementia-free sample. We report small but significant associations between elevated biomarker levels and worsened cognitive performance at baseline for four cognitive tasks (OR = 1.204, pi.e. better performance (β = -0.096, pth quartiles of the baseline biomarker levels were significantly associated with cognitive task scores assessed years later on the p