Alzheimer's Gene Linked to Severe COVID-19 Risk

A study published in the Journal of Gerontology: Medical Sciences found a possible association between the increased risk among people with dementia and high rates of new coronavirus infections in nursing communities, reports WebMD . The APOE e4e4 gene variant is known to boost the risk of Alzheimer's disease as well as heart disease, and an analysis of roughly 382,000 people of European ancestry found the variant in about 2.4 percent. Meanwhile, 5.1 percent of participants who tested positive for COVID-19 had the variant as well, which suggests that carriers are at twice the risk of coronavirus infection. "This is an exciting result because we might now be able to pinpoint how this faulty gene causes vulnerability to COVID-19," said University of Connecticut Professor Chia-Ling Kuo. "This could lead to new ideas for treatments." Moreover, people with dementia are three times more likely to get severe COVID-19, but they are not within the populations advised to protect against infection or shelter in place. "This study suggests that this high risk may not simply be due to the effects of dementia, advancing age or frailty, or exposure to the virus in care homes," said University of Exeter Professor David Melzer. "The effect could be partly due to this underlying genetic change, which puts them at risk for both COVID-19 and dementia."