PET imaging has shown that a major genetic risk factor for Alzheimer's disease in whites is also a risk factor for the disease in Latinos, according to a new study published in the Archives of Neurology.
Researchers from the Banner Alzheimer's Institute and colleagues at the Arizona Alzheimer's Consortium -- both in Phoenix -- used PET to show that cognitively healthy late-middle-aged carriers of the apolipoprotein E4 (APOE4) gene have lower activity than noncarriers of the gene in brain regions known to be affected by Alzheimer's disease (Arch Neurol, April 2010, Vol. 67:4, pp. 462-468).
But the researchers also studied 27 Latinos with and without the APOE4 gene, finding that cognitively healthy people in their 50s and 60s with the APOE4 gene in this group also had lower activity in brain regions known to be affected by Alzheimer's disease.
The study shows how brain imaging techniques can be used in healthy people to evaluate genetic and nongenetic risk factors for this disorder, according to lead author Jessica Langbaum, Ph.D., staff scientist at the Banner Alzheimer's Institute.
Latinos are about 1.5 times more likely than whites to develop Alzheimer's disease, and between 2000 and 2050, the number of affected Latinos is expected to increase by 600%, Langbaum wrote.
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