JLE

Psychologie & NeuroPsychiatrie du vieillissement

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Facteurs de risque vasculaire et risque de maladie d’Alzheimer : revue d’études épidémiologiques Volume 4, issue 1, Mars 2006

Authors
Inserm U593, université de Bordeaux II, Fédération de neurologie, CHU Pellegrin, Bordeaux

Etiology of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is still undefined in its most frequent sporadic type, but a role of vascular risk factor is more and more evocated in its pathophysiology. This role enables to hope that preventive or curative care of vascular risk factors could decrease AD incidence. Among these factors, high blood pressure, diabetes, hypercholesterolemia and tobacco consumption were the most studied. We review the risk for AD, which had been associated with each of these factors in epidemiological studies. High blood pressure is associated with an increased risk of AD in most studies while the results are more controversial for the others factors. All these four vascular risk factors have variable interaction with the presence of cerebrovascular diseases and of the epsilon 4 allele of the apolipoprotein E gene which is a predisposition factor for sporadic AD.