47-Year-Old Mom With Early-Onset Alzheimer’s Shares Her First Symptoms (The Hearty Soul)

The Hearty Soul quoted Christian Pike in an article profiling a mom with early-onset Alzheimer’s. Pike explained that one copy of the APOE4 gene increases the risk of Alzheimer’s disease by 4 times in women. When women have 2 copies, their risk of Alzheimer’s increases 15 times over. In contrast, having 1 copy of APOE4 poses almost no risk for men, and 2 copies only increase their risk by 4 times. This difference in gene expression means that women who carry APOE4 face a significantly different level of risk compared to men.