OUR SERVICESA new study published in the Archives of General Psychiatry found that genes account for 58% to 79% of a person’s risk of developing late-onset Alzheimer’s. It’s the largest genetic study of Alzheimer’s ever.
Late-onset Alzheimer’s is the most common form of the disease and typically strikes after age 60. It causes forgetfulness, confusion and behavioral changes in almost 4.5 million people in the USA that are afflicted with the disease. However, genes do not account for all of the risk of Alzheimer’s.
Although genes might play a bigger role than lifestyle choices in the development of the disease, people with a strong history of the disease might still be able to reduce their risk or delay the onset of the disease by five, ten or even fifteen years.
Study author Margaret Gatz, a professor of psychology at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, says lifestyle factors, such as maintaining social ties, might, in some cases, delay or prevent the disease even in people who have a strong family history of the disease.
Gatz and her colleagues found 382 pairs of both identical and fraternal twins over the age of 65 in which one or both suffered from Alzheimer’s. Some identical twins, who share the same genetic material, did not have the disease despite the fact that their twins did. Gatz says these identical twins, who were healthy at the end of the study, might never get the disease, or they might develop it much later in life.
Experts like Thomas Perls, a geriatrician at the Boston University School of Medicine, say late-onset Alzheimer’s is a complex disease probably caused by an array of factors.