Precision Medicine Protocol for Cognitive Decline May Also Reduce Depression: Daily Dose

Patient Care brings primary care clinicians a lot of medical news every day—it’s easy to miss an important study. The Daily Dose provides a concise summary of one of the website's leading stories you may not have seen.

On October 3, 2025, we reported on findings from a study currently in preprint that was designed to assess whether participation in a precision medicine protocol program is associated with improvement in depressive symptoms.

The study

ReCODE is a precision medicine protocol program designed for patients with Alzheimer disease and mild cognitive impairment. Unlike single-target drug therapies, ReCODE uses a multifactorial strategy to identify and address contributors to cognitive decline, including insulin resistance, chronic infections, vascular risk, nutrient deficiencies, toxin exposures, sleep apnea, and chronic stress. Personalized interventions based on individual assessments range from dietary and lifestyle modifications to targeted medical management. A total of 170 individuals were enrolled in the ReCODE program, and each participant received consultations with clinical practitioners and a detailed orientation to the program, according to the study. Investigators conducted follow-up visits 31 days post-enrollment, during which participants received further guidance on diet, lifestyle modifications, medications, and supplements.

The findings

According to the results, participation in the ReCODE program was associated with clinically meaningful improvements in mood after just 1 month of treatment. Average Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9) scores fell by 3.96 points (P <.001) over the 31 days between study assessments, a more favorable change compared with the modest PHQ-9 reductions typically observed with selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors of -2 to -3 points on average, often without a change in severity category, according to the study authors. Importantly, many participants moved from moderate (10–14) to mild (5–9) depression categories, an improvement indicating both statistical and clinical significance. The greatest gains were observed in patients with more severe baseline depression.

Authors' comments

"Our results underscore the ReCODE program’s capacity to deliver meaningful improvements in mood, in addition to the cognitive, biomarker, and neuroimaging benefits reported in earlier work...As the prevalence of AD rises globally, approaches that simultaneously improve cognition, mood, and systemic health are likely to become increasingly valuable."

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