GDF15 and Mental deterioration: Higher MIC-1/GDF-15 blood levels have been associated with a variety of diseases and conditions including inflammation (Brown et al., 2007), cardiovascular disease (Brown et al., 2002), various types of cancer [e.g., prostate (Brown et al., 2009), colon (Wallin et al., 2011), melanoma (Boyle et al., 2009), pancreas (Wang et al., 2014b)] neurodegeneration and cognitive decline (Jiang et al., 2016), and all-cause mortality (Wiklund et al., 2010).