GSA 2018 Annual Scientific Meeting Bedford VAMC, University of Massachusetts Medical Center, 4. New England GRECC, VA Medical Center Estimates of the incidence of seizures in clinically-diag- nosed Alzheimer’s disease (AD) range from 8% to 21% in those with advanced dementia, with higher rates of seizures in early-onset AD (<65 years old). However, there is a dearth of information regarding seizure prevalence and patient characteristics in pathologically-confrmed AD. As seizure activity may be overlooked in a population with dementia, it is important to characterize the prevalence of seizure activity in patients with autopsy-confrmed Alzheimer’s pathology. The aims of the current study are twofold: 1) to provide information on the prevalence of seizure activity in patho- logically-confrmed AD, and 2) to determine if seizure preva- lence is related to age of symptom onset and life expectancy. A retrospective review of medical records was conducted on a database of male veterans who had resided on an inpatient dementia care unit prior to death. Subjects included 77 male veterans with pathologically-confrmed AD. Of these, 19 subjects had a clinical history of seizures and 58 had no his- tory of seizures, producing a rate of 24.7%. This is higher than prevalence rates identifed in clinically-diagnosed AD. Patients with AD who developed seizures were more likely to have a younger age of onset (F(1,75) = 9.58, p<0.01) and shorter time to death (F(1,75) = 8.14, p<001). Our results suggest that the increased prevalence of seizures in individu- als with pathologically-confrmed AD is important for pro- viders to consider with regard to identifcation of seizure activity, appropriate treatment planning, and prognosis. THE ASSOCIATION BETWEEN BDNF POLYMORPHISM AND BIOMARKERS OF STRESS IN MIDDLE AGED AND OLDER ADULTS A. Fiocco, L. Krieger, D. D’Amico, Ryerson University Stress exposure over the lifespan is robustly associated with accelerated cognitive decline in late life. Researchers continue to investigate factors that determine individual differences in stress physiology. Brain derived neurotrophic factor is found to associate with cognitive trajectory in late life, and the Met allele of the functional Val66Met BDNF gene has been found to associate with poorer episodic mem- ory and executive functioning in late life. The objective of this study was to evaluate the association between BDNF polymorphism and indices of stress among adults aged 50+. Community dwelling middle aged and older adults provided a blood sample for BDNF genotyping. Participants also sampled their saliva fve times a day over three consecu- tive days for measurement of diurnal cortisol and under- went the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST) for measurement of stress reactivity. Among 120 adults aged 50–67 (83% female, 89% Caucasian), 73 participants were Val/Val car- riers and 47 carried one copy of the Met allele (45 Val/Met, 2 Met/Met carriers). Val/Val and Met carriers did not dif- fer on any demographic factors. Repeated measures analyses did not reveal an association between BDNF genotype and diurnal salivary cortisol (p=.63); however, analyses revealed that Met carriers displayed a blunted cortisol response to the TSST compared with Val/Val carriers, F(9, 936)=2.09, p=.03. This is the frst study to evaluate the role of BDNF polymorphism in stress physiology among middle-aged and older adults. Future studies are needed to evaluate lifespan interconnections between BDNF, stress physiology and cog- nitive function. THE ASSOCIATION BETWEEN TELOMERE LENGTH, 21 NUTRIENTS AND A HEALTHY EATING INDEX IN THE NHANES 1999–2002 S. Ghimire 1 , F. Sy 2 , 1. University of Nevada Las Vegas, 2. Department of Environmental and Occupational Health University of Nevada Las Vegas (UNLV) Introduction: Preservation of telomere length, a bio- marker of aging, is hypothesized as one pathway by which proper nutrition can delay or prevent the development of chronic disease. The current study aims to comprehensively examine a large variety of nutrients for their potential to preserve telomere length. Additionally, the association be- tween telomere length and healthy eating was examined. Methods: Cross-sectional data on 6645 non-pregnant indi- viduals aged 20–84 years were included from National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) 1999–2002. Nutrients intake were energy-adjusted using the residual method to minimize measurement error in dietary estimates. Results: In a linear regression model, adjusted for demographics, health-related behaviors and an infammatory biomarker, intakes of potassium (β= 0. 1104347, 95%CI: 0.0240812, 0.1967882), Vitamin B2 (β= 0. 0901791, 95%CI: 0.0053695,0.1749888), Vitamin B6 (β= 0. 0724068, 95%CI: 0.0081196, 0.136694), total fat score (β= 0.0122125, 95%CI: 0.0028288, 0.0215962), and the overall healthy eating index score (β= 0.0040716, 95%CI: 0.0009278, 0.0072154) were positively associated with telomere length. In sensitivity analyses, compared to those who met the rec- ommended dietary intake levels, individuals with less than the recommended intake of Vitamin B2 (β= -0.1141968, 95%CI: -0.2092438, -0.0191497) and Vitamin B6 (β= -0.0949459, 95%CI: -0.1699573, -0.0199345) had shorter telomeres. The fndings were inconsistent in subgroup ana- lysis by age, sex, chronic disease status, and use of dietary supplements. Conclusions: Our fndings suggest that some nutrients in particular and healthy eating in general, easily achievable through nutritional supplementation and healthy diets, are associated with preservation of telomere length. THE TRANSCRIPTIONAL BIOMARKERS FOR AGING- RELATED DISEASES: THE MULTI-ETHNIC STUDY OF ATHEROSCLEROSIS J. Ding 1 , K. Lohman 1 , S. Kritchevsky 1 , A. Molina 1 , B. Nicklas 2 , A. Bertoni 1 , W. Post 3 , Y. Liu 1 , 1. Wake Forest School of Medicine, 2. Section on Gerontology and Geriatric Medicine, Department of Internal Medicine, Wake Forest School of Medicine, Winston-Salem, NC, 3. Johns Hopkins School of Medicine Aging-related diseases and conditions seriously com- promise the quality of life among older adults. We previously identifed age-related transcriptional networks associated to fundamental aging mechanisms including autophagic fux for the top network. Our objective is to examine the utility of this network as a biomarker for aging-related diseases. We used ordinal logistic regression to investigate the cross-sectional relationship of the autophagic fux network (3 transcripts) with the comorbidity index, defned as the number of preva- lent aging-related diseases, at the 2010–2012 Multi-Ethnic Innovation in Aging, 2018, Vol. 2, No. S1 301 Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/innovateage/article-abstract/2/suppl_1/301/5169064 by guest on 05 June 2020