The Genetics of Alzheimer's Disease

Introduction Chances are, you already know someone with Alzheimer’s disease (AD); currently, an estimated 5 million Americans have the disease.1 If you don’t already know someone, chances are you eventually will as our population ages; nearly 20% of people ages 75-84, and nearly half of people older than 85 years of age, have AD.2 Indeed, the scope of the problem is so large, with future projections so dire, that President Obama recently announced a National Plan to fight AD, with the ambitious goal of developing effective prevention and treatment approaches for AD and related dementias by 2025.3 An estimated 5 million Americans are afflicted with Alzheimer’s disease. This leads to some natural questions: What is Alzheimer’s disease? What causes Alzheimer’s disease? What can genetics—the study of genes, which are the modules by which instructions for specific traits are transmitted from parents to offspring—tell us about Alzheimer’s disease, both at the level of understanding the disease and at the level of understanding our individual risk factors?     Related StoriesThe Human Microbiome: A True Story about You and Trillions of Your Closest (Microscopic) FriendsThe Genetics of Autism 
Source: ActionBioscience - Category: Biology Authors: Source Type: news