Risk factors of Alzheimer’s disease
Age is the major risk factor of this disease. With growing age, brain cells begin to die; which finally result in memory impairment.
The second major risk factor of the disease is family history and heredity. The main genetic determinant of Alzheimer's disease is apolipoprotein E; allele e4. When an injury occurs in the brain, then the cholesterol carrier, apolipoprotein is responsible to repair the same. Now, suppose the e4 allele of apolipoprotein is defective in a person. This person will transmit defective gene/allele into the offsprings, causing the disease.
Lonely environment of aged people is another risk factor for them. In such an environment, chances of development of this disease are more apparent.
Other risk factors include high blood pressure, diabetes, stroke, high cholesterol, head trauma smoking etc. All these risk factors affect the functioning of Apolipoprotein E in one or the other way.
It is important to note that females are at a greater risk of having the disease, so being female is another risk factor.
Some minor risk factors are low family income, low occupational status and few years of education.
Brain of a patient with Alzheimer’s disease
Alzheimer's disease is a type of dementia. In this plaques are formed in certain regions of the brain. As a result, those regions of the brain are impaired and become useless. Slowly cell connections are lost; at last these brain cells die.
So, brain of a patient with this disease will contain lots of plagues; which are sticky proteins known as “beta-amyloid”. These sticky proteins build up between nerve cells.