Parental age as a risk factor in Alzheimer's disease

Because of the associations between Alzheimer's disease and Down's syndrome, advanced maternal and paternal age, which are risk factors for Down's syndrome, have been proposed as risk factors for Alzheimer's disease. Parental age data were obtained from a group of patients with Alzheimer's disease and compared with comparable data for a group of nondemented subjects matched for age and socioeconomic level. As a way of detecting a familial causative factor in Alzheimer's disease, life-span data were also collected for parents of patients and control subjects. The results indicated that patients with Alzheimer's disease and nondemented control subjects did not differ in the mean ages of their parents at the time of the patients' or subjects' births, nor did parental age correlate significantly with age at onset of disease. Moreover, the parents of patients with Alzheimer's disease did not differ in mean age at death from the parents of nondemented control subjects.