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gene may put women in ‘fast-lane’ toward alzheimer’s disease
the new research may explain why more women are diagnosed with alzheimer's than men.
jul 4 2022
3 minute read
“this is one of a few and perhaps the strongest associations of a genetic risk factor for alzheimer’s that is specific to women,” said senior study author lindsay farrer.
scientists have discovered a gene that may raise the risk of alzheimer’s disease in women, a finding that could shed light on why some people are more likely to develop the progressive disease than others.
the study, published in alzheimer’s disease & dementia: the journal of the alzheimer’s association , found that the gene, known as mgmt, was significantly associated with the formation of amyloid-β and tau, particularly in women. the same association to the two proteins, which are considered hallmarks of the disease, was not found in men.
“this is one of a few and perhaps the strongest associations of a genetic risk factor for alzheimer’s that is specific to women,” said lindsay farrer , senior author of the study and chief of biomedical genetics at the boston university school of medicine. “this finding is particularly robust because it was discovered independently in two distinct populations using different approaches.”
researchers have long known that genetic variants can increase the likelihood of developing alzheimer’s disease, the most notable example being the apoe ε4 gene, which is considered a major risk factor for the disease among people 65 years of age or older. around 60 per cent of people from european ancestry with alzheimer’s disease carry this gene compared to just 26 per cent of the general population.
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the discovery of another gene that may impact the development of alzheimer’s disease was made by two separate teams of researchers studying two independent sets of data. the first focused on a family of hutterites, a founder population of central european ancestry that settled in the mid-west area of the u.s. hutterites are extremely useful in genetic research because their isolated, insular culture has resulted in a relatively small gene pool that simplifies the search for genetic underpinnings of disease. all the hutterites with alzheimer’s in the study were women. the second investigation, based on evidence suggesting a link between breast cancer and alzheimer’s, involved the analysis of genetic data from a national sample of 10,340 women without the apoe ε4 gene.
in both sets of data, mgmt was significantly associated with the development of alzheimer’s.
alzheimer’s disease is a chronic condition that is believed to be the result of the accumulation of certain proteins in the brain that leads to the slow death of neurons, according to the alzheimer’s association . this process eventually produces symptoms of memory loss, difficulty thinking or changes in mood and behaviour. the disease is the most common cause of dementia, accounting for 60 to 80 per cent of all cases, and more than 747,000 canadians are currently living with alzheimer’s or another form of dementia. roughly 65 per cent of people diagnosed with the disease after the age of 65 are women.
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“women, due to unique genetic risk factors, like apoe ε4 and mgmt, and sex-specific risk factors, like the sudden reduction in estrogen during the peri-menopause transition, may be in the fast-lane toward the disease, while men are sitting in traffic,” said richard isaacson, director of the alzheimer’s prevention clinic at florida atlantic university’s schmidt college of medicine, who was not involved in the study, according to cnn .
“perhaps mgmt is an important missing piece of the risk prediction puzzle for these women, but further studies are necessary.”
dave yasvinski is a writer with healthing.ca
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