INCREASED RISK OF FAMILIAL LATE-ONSET ALZHEIMERS-DISEASE IN WOMEN

The role of gender in the pathogenesis of Alzheimer's disease (AD) is an important issue that remains controversial. We compared men and wom en in late-onset familial AD kindreds for the risk of developing AD by studying 26 well-characterized familial AD kindreds from the Oregon A lzheimer Disease Center and, for confirmation, an additional 32 kindre ds from the National Cell Repository (NCR) at the Indiana University A lzheimer Disease Center. Comparing women to men, the age-adjusted odds ratio estimates were 3.2 (p = 0.0002) for the Oregon data and 2.3 (p = 0.004) for the NCR data. These results suggest that gender is an ind ependent risk factor for familial late-onset AD and may play a role in the pathogenesis of this disease.