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Environmental risk factors for Alzheimer's disease: their relationship to age of onset and to familial or sporadic types

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 July 2009

A. S. Henderson*
Affiliation:
NH & MRC Social Psychiatry Research Unit, Australian National University, Canberra; Geriatric Medicine, Aged and Extended Care Department, Repatriation General Hospital, Concord, NSW, Australia; Department of Mental Hygiene, School of Hygiene and Public Health, The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland, USA
A. F. Jorm
Affiliation:
NH & MRC Social Psychiatry Research Unit, Australian National University, Canberra; Geriatric Medicine, Aged and Extended Care Department, Repatriation General Hospital, Concord, NSW, Australia; Department of Mental Hygiene, School of Hygiene and Public Health, The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland, USA
A. E. Korten
Affiliation:
NH & MRC Social Psychiatry Research Unit, Australian National University, Canberra; Geriatric Medicine, Aged and Extended Care Department, Repatriation General Hospital, Concord, NSW, Australia; Department of Mental Hygiene, School of Hygiene and Public Health, The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland, USA
H. Creasey
Affiliation:
NH & MRC Social Psychiatry Research Unit, Australian National University, Canberra; Geriatric Medicine, Aged and Extended Care Department, Repatriation General Hospital, Concord, NSW, Australia; Department of Mental Hygiene, School of Hygiene and Public Health, The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland, USA
E. McCusker
Affiliation:
NH & MRC Social Psychiatry Research Unit, Australian National University, Canberra; Geriatric Medicine, Aged and Extended Care Department, Repatriation General Hospital, Concord, NSW, Australia; Department of Mental Hygiene, School of Hygiene and Public Health, The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland, USA
G. A. Broe
Affiliation:
NH & MRC Social Psychiatry Research Unit, Australian National University, Canberra; Geriatric Medicine, Aged and Extended Care Department, Repatriation General Hospital, Concord, NSW, Australia; Department of Mental Hygiene, School of Hygiene and Public Health, The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland, USA
W. Longley
Affiliation:
NH & MRC Social Psychiatry Research Unit, Australian National University, Canberra; Geriatric Medicine, Aged and Extended Care Department, Repatriation General Hospital, Concord, NSW, Australia; Department of Mental Hygiene, School of Hygiene and Public Health, The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland, USA
J. C. Anthony
Affiliation:
NH & MRC Social Psychiatry Research Unit, Australian National University, Canberra; Geriatric Medicine, Aged and Extended Care Department, Repatriation General Hospital, Concord, NSW, Australia; Department of Mental Hygiene, School of Hygiene and Public Health, The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland, USA
*
1Address for correspondence: Professor A. S. Henderson, NH & MRC Social Psychiatry Research Unit, The Australian National University, GPO Box 4, Canberra, ACT 2601, Australia.

Synopsis

Data from a case-control study of Alzheimer's disease (AD) were analysed in relation to age of onset and familial/sporadic status. The analyses were restricted to environmental exposures which might injure the brain. Later-onset AD was found to be positively associated with starvation/malnutrition and with nose-picking and negatively with analgesics, while earlier-onset was associated with physical underactivity and nervous breakdown more than 10 years before. Sporadic AD was associated with starvation/malnutrition and with head injury. These analyses merit replication in other large case-control studies of AD.

Type
Original Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1992

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