Signs of Alzheimer’s disease may begin showing up four decades early in those with a family history of the disease, according to a web-based study of about 60,000 individuals.
Researchers culled crowd-sourced responses to an online memory test from participants ages 18 to 85. They found that those with a history of Alzheimer’s and who are younger than age 65 (the typical age of onset) do not perform as well as their peers without a family history of the disease. The family history effect is particularly pronounced in men, the study’s authors wrote, as well as in those with less education, diabetes, and certain genetic changes associated with Alzheimer’s disease risk.
The results suggest that individuals at risk have an early opportunity to focus on cognitive health care, said lead author Joshua Talboom, Ph.D., of the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen).
“This study supports recommendations underscoring the importance of living a healthy lifestyle and properly treating disease states such as diabetes,” said Talboom. “Our findings specifically highlight the positive effects of such interventions for those with a family history risk of Alzheimer’s, opening the door to the development of more targeted risk-reduction approaches to combat the disease.”
TGen and University of Arizona researchers are continuing to collect data from their online memory test, called MindCrowd. Their goal is to develop a set of data baselines that will eventually aid those who evaluate and treat Alzheimer’s patients, TGen said in a statement.
