0000000000524876
AUTHOR
Massimiliano M. Corsi
Apolipoprotein E Genotypic Frequencies Among Down Syndrome Patients Imply Early Unsuccessful Aging for ApoE4 Carriers
Down syndrome (DS) might be considered a model for unsuccessful and early aging, possibly accelerated for those who carry the APOE4 allele associated with common age-related diseases, e.g., Alzheimer's disease and a poor prognosis after acute myocardial infarction, causing lower ApoE4 frequencies among the very old in general populations. We compared ApoE genotypic frequencies found for healthy adults (n = 211, age 90) to those found for DS patients (n = 106, mean age 9 years), all living in western Sicily. We found that the frequency of the ApoE23 genotype increased with age among the healthy adults (8.5%, 6.4%, 19.7%; p = 0.024) while ApoE34 frequency decreased (16.1%, 12.6%, 4.1%; p = 0.…
Does Down's syndrome support the homocysteine theory of atherogenesis?
Abstract Down syndrome (DS) is generally considered as an “atheroma-free model”. In this preliminary study, we investigated homocysteine, folate and Vitamin B 12 levels in 13 DS patients (male, average age 60 years) and 20 age-matched individuals. We also studied lipid fractions, and polymorphisms for Cystothionine β-synthase (CBS), 5,10-methyl-tetrahydro-folate reductase (MTHFR) and apolipoprotein E (Apo-E) genes. However, DS patients with the MTHFR TT genotype showed an increased of plasma homocysteine (tHcy). Our results indicate that this group of “healthy old” Down syndrome patients, although showing some classical biochemical risk factors for atherosclerosis, did not suffer clinical c…