Jan 12, 2009 6:41 pm US/Eastern
HealthWatch: Alzheimer's Disease & Women
NEW YORK (CBS) ―
Five million Americans are living with Alzheimer's disease and as many as two-thirds of them are women. There's a new gene discovery though that may help explain why Alzheimer's strikes so many more women than men.
There's a very special program at Riverstone Senior Life Services in Washington Heights: it's daycare for folks with Alzheimer's and other memory problems. There they get activities, meals, and plenty of T.L.C! Both Irma Seguinot and Bertha Davis, who are in their eighties, realizes their memory isn't what it used to be.
"I noticed that I didn't remember things the way I used to. I'd get up in the morning and I'd fix something at night for the morning," Davis says. "I'd walk around the kitchen wondering what I had to do. Why was I here?"
Women outnumber men in the center for Alzheimer's, something Seguinot noticed among her friends who had developed memory problems.
"Usually they were females, and you know, they were good friends, I would visit them. They were a little older, the ones I'm speaking about," she says.
Now researchers at the Mayo Clinic have identified a gene that may help explain why Alzheimer's seems to affect so many more women than men. It's a gene associated with the most common form of Alzheimer's – late onset – meaning in the very elderly.
"This gene is found on the X-chromosome, and if you're a woman with two copies of this gene, one on each chromosome, then your risks are somewhat elevated for Alzheimer's Disease," says Dr. Mony DeLeon of the NYU School of Medicine. "But the gene doesn't seem to cause the disease. It's associated with the disease, increases the risk. So it's nothing to worry about at this point."
DeLeon, a noted Alzheimer's researcher, also pointed out that this is just one of several genes that have been associated with Alzheimer's. What's interesting about it is what it does.
"Knowing what the gene – this gene actually, that is – has this variation, is a gene that codes for cell communication, which is very important in the development of the nervous system," says DeLeon.
In other words, the gene doesn't actually cause Alzheimer's directly, it just increases the risk somewhat. But Alzheimer's will likely be found to be caused by a combination of factors, including genetics, the environment, and something we can't do much about – aging.
Though the gene doesn't cause Alzheimer's it still tells researchers plenty. Anytime you can identify a gene associated with a disease, you can usually figure out what the gene codes for, what the gene actually makes. That gene product can then be investigated to figure out what its role is in normal or abnormal brain function. Those clues can then help researchers design drugs to either interfere or help the gene, depending on whether it's a good gene or a bad gene.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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