{"id":1831,"date":"2018-09-13T19:04:26","date_gmt":"2018-09-13T19:04:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mc.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltmedicine\/?p=1831"},"modified":"2021-08-11T19:36:28","modified_gmt":"2021-08-11T19:36:28","slug":"study-provides-robust-evidence-of-sex-differences-with-alzheimers-gene","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medschool.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbilt-medicine\/study-provides-robust-evidence-of-sex-differences-with-alzheimers-gene\/","title":{"rendered":"Study provides robust evidence of sex differences with Alzheimer\u2019s gene"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Illustration by Iker Ayestaran.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The APOE gene, the strongest genetic risk factor for Alzheimer\u2019s disease, may play a more prominent role in disease development among women than men, according to new research from the Vanderbilt Memory and Alzheimer\u2019s Center.<\/p>\n

The research confirmed recent studies that carrying the APOE \u03b54 allele has a greater association with Alzheimer\u2019s disease among women compared to men, and went one step further by evaluating its association with amyloid and tau levels.<\/p>\n

The study published May 7 in JAMA Neurology adds to mounting evidence that the higher prevalence of Alzheimer\u2019s disease among women may not simply be a consequence of living longer.<\/p>\n

Almost two-thirds of Americans with Alzheimer\u2019s are women. The research, based on a meta-analysis of both cerebral spinal fluid (CSF) samples from study volunteers from four datasets and autopsy findings from six datasets of Alzheimer-diseased brains, is the most robust evidence to date that the APOE gene may play a greater role in women than men in developing Alzheimer\u2019s pathology, said Timothy Hohman, PhD, the study\u2019s lead author.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe haven\u2019t fully evaluated sex as a biological variable. But there is good reason to expect in older adulthood that there would be hormonal differences between the sexes that could impact disease,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The study looked at whether APOE in men and women was primarily associated with the amyloid pathway \u2014 the proteins that form plaques in the brain \u2014 or with the tau pathway \u2014 the proteins that form tangles in the brain.<\/p>\n

The association with the amyloid pathway was the same in men and women. However, the APOE association was much greater for women with the tau pathway. This is opposite of what researchers expected because of APOE\u2019s established role in amyloid processing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  The APOE gene, the strongest genetic risk factor for Alzheimer\u2019s disease, may play a more prominent role in disease development among women than men, according to new research from the Vanderbilt Memory and Alzheimer\u2019s Center. The research confirmed recent studies that carrying the APOE \u03b54 allele has a greater association with Alzheimer\u2019s disease among…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":212,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[11,26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1831","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-vm-around-the-medical-center","category-summer-2018"],"acf":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pcDnub-tx","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medschool.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbilt-medicine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1831","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medschool.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbilt-medicine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medschool.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbilt-medicine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medschool.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbilt-medicine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/212"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medschool.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbilt-medicine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1831"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/medschool.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbilt-medicine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1831\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3003,"href":"https:\/\/medschool.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbilt-medicine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1831\/revisions\/3003"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medschool.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbilt-medicine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1831"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medschool.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbilt-medicine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1831"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medschool.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbilt-medicine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1831"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}