Scientists at the University of Texas Health Center at San Antonio have conducted a new genome study to better determine dementia risk factors and its causes.
According to a Sept. 17 press release, the study revealed an overlap between dementia diagnoses with any cause, and those related to vascular issues, according to Dr. Bernard Fongang with the Glenn Biggs Institute for Alzheimer’s and Neurodegenerative Diseases at UT Health San Antonio.
“Dementia is a multifactorial disease with Alzheimer’s disease and vascular dementia pathologies making the largest contributions – and yet, most genome-wide association studies focus just on Alzheimer’s disease,” Fongang said. “We conducted such a study of all-cause dementia and discovered a substantial genetic overlap with vascular dementia.”
The new study is based on a dataset of 800,597 people living in the U.S. and in Europe.
Alzheimer’s is thought to be the most common dementia subtype, with vascular dementia following behind. Vascular dementia is typically diagnosed based on things like strokes or blood vessel issues in the brain, and risk factors include hypertension and diabetes. Recent research has shown that more kinds of cognitive impairment than just vascular dementia involve brain vascular damage.
Researchers also found overlap among Alzheimer’s disease of any cause with neurodegeneration and cerebral small vessel disease.
“Our findings expand the current knowledge base of dementia genetics by focusing on both all-cause dementia and vascular dementia,” Fongang said in the release. “We identified several putative genetic variants and biological pathways associated with all-cause dementia and vascular dementia, and added additional support for the involvement of vascular mechanisms in dementia pathogenesis.”
