WIKIMEDIA, CHALMERS BUTTERFIELDFor decades, the gene APOE has been implicated in Alzheimer’s disease; namely, possessing a particular variant called APOE4 increases one’s risk of developing the disease. But such risk is not distributed equally, researchers reported today (April 14) in the Annals of Neurology. Healthy women with one copy of APOE4 are much more likely than male carriers to progress to mild cognitive impairment or to develop Alzheimer’s.
The results could help explain why, in general, women are at a greater risk for developing Alzheimer’s than men.
Although such a sex-bias had been hinted at nearly two decades ago, it was by and large ignored by the clinical and research communities, Michael Greicius, the medical director of the Stanford Center for Memory Disorders and one of the authors of the study, said in a press release. “I’d been practicing for five years before I ever heard of this paper, which had essentially been ignored for 10 years already,” he said.
Greicius and his colleagues collected data on nearly 8,000 men and women—some of whom had normal cognition and some who had mild cognitive impairment. Although all of those with APOE4 were more likely ...
