More evidence that Alzheimer's disease may be inherited from your mother

March, 2011
  • A new study adds to growing evidence that having a mother with Alzheimer's disease is a greater risk factor than if your father suffered the disease.

A two-year study involving 53 older adults (60+) has found that those with a mother who had Alzheimer's disease had significantly more brain atrophy than those with a father or no parent with Alzheimer's disease. More specifically, they had twice as much gray matter shrinkage, and about one and a half times more whole brain shrinkage per year.

This atrophy was particularly concentrated in the precuneus and parahippocampal gyrus. Those with the APOE4 gene also had more atrophy in the frontal cortex than those who didn’t carry the ‘Alzheimer’s gene’.

This adds to evidence indicating that maternal history is a far greater risk factor for Alzheimer’s than paternal history. Eleven participants reported having a mother with Alzheimer's disease, 10 had a father with Alzheimer's disease and 32 had no family history of the disease. It has been estimated that people who have first-degree relatives with Alzheimer's disease are four to 10 times more likely to develop the disease.

Reference: 

Related News

A clinical trial involving 9361 older adults (50+) with hypertension but without diabetes or history of stroke has found that intensive control of blood pressure significantly reduced the risk of developing mild cognitive impairment.

Survey data from 6,807 Danish older adults (average age 60) in the Copenhagen City Heart Study, has found that being distressed in late midlife is associated with a higher risk of dementia in later life.

Poor sleep has been associated with Alzheimer's disease risk, but a new study suggests a specific aspect of sleep is important.

Data from 1,215 older adults, of whom 173 (14%) were African-American, has found that, although brain scans showed no significant differences between black and white participants,

One important reason for the greater cognitive problems commonly experienced as we age, is our increasing difficulty in ignoring distracting and irrelevant information. But it may be that in some circumstances that propensity can be used to help memory.

A number of studies have found that physical exercise can help delay the onset of dementia, however the ability of exercise to slow the decline once dementia has set in is a more equivocal question. A large new study answers this question in the negative.

Do older adults forget as much as they think, or is it rather that they ‘misremember’?

A Finnish study involving over 1000 older adults suggests that a counselling program can prevent cognitive decline even among those with the Alzheimer’s gene.

A pilot study involving 106 participants of the Rush Memory and Aging Project who had experienced a stroke followed participants for an average of 5.9 years, testing their cognitive function and monitoring their eating habits using food journals.

A small Japanese study has found evidence that those with amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI) show a specific decline in their ability to recognize faces, and this is accompanied by changes in the way they scan faces.

Pages

Subscribe to Latest newsSubscribe to Latest newsSubscribe to Latest health newsSubscribe to Latest news
Error | About memory

Error

The website encountered an unexpected error. Please try again later.