Analysis of apolipoprotein e genotypes in alzheimer's disease and the relationship about vascular risk factors

Alzheimer?s disease (AD) is considered to be the most common neurodegenerative cause of dementia. AD pathogenesis is still to be elucidated but it is believed to be the complex interaction between genetic and environmental factors. It is necessary to study all potential risk factors which may contribute to its development. From the point of view of early diagnosis and potential application of primary or secondary prevention, genetic factors are considered to be the most important. Therefore, its vascular risk factors and ApoE genotyping in etiopathogenesis have become increasingly important. To date, little research has examined the interaction between vascular factors and the ApoE ?4 allele in AD patients. Therefore, the aim of this study is to evaluate the relationship between the ApoE-e4 alleles and the vascular risk factors such as hypertension, diabetes mellitus, hyperlipidemia, ischemic heart disease, obesity, smoking and alcohol consumption, atherosclerosis, elevated homocysteine, and low vitamin B12 and folic acid. For this study, 44 patients who applied to the dementia unit at Gazi University, Faculty of Medicine Department of Neurology with `?Probable AD?? diagnosed with NINCDS-ADRDA criteria were examined, and 51 same-aged randomly selected voluntary participants who applied to neurology polyclinic and who did not have any intracranial degenerative disease were taken as the control group. In this study, it was found that as risk factors for AD low education level (p=0,004), smoking (p=0,000), Hyperlipidemia (p=0,000), high serum total cholesterol levels (p=0,012), and hyperhomocysteinemia (p=0,000) were significantly more meaningful when compared to the control group. In addition, when Alzheimer Disease?s patients with ApoE ?4 allele are compared with the ones without, it was found that they were older and their cognition tests scores were more prominently affected. Vascular risk factors lead up to degeneration years before the AD clinical symptoms? begin. The etiology and definitive treatment of AD is not yet clarified or found. For the prevention of AD, vascular risk factors should be considered important due to the fact that they can be treated. It is believed that the presence of ApoE ?4 allele both increases the vascular risk factors and directly affect AH. Very likely, biological markers and risk factor genes will be more frequently utilized in the characterization of individual patients in the clinical setting for future available treatment.