Candidate's Plan/Training: The Candidate plans a career as a patient-oriented clinical research investigator and academic geriatric psychiatrist bridging dementia, vascular risk factors and clinical epidemiology. Training will include formal didactics in lipid metabolism and augmentation of the Candidate's previous epidemiology training with additional advanced biostatistics and epidemiology courses and closely supervised completion of the research plan. Environment: The University of Washington Alzheimer's Disease Patient Registry (ADPR)/Adult Changes in Thought (ACT) and Alzheimer's Disease Research Center (ADRC) provide expertise in epidemiology, clinical dementia evaluation, and biostatistics to form an ideal research environment for epidemiological investigation of Alzheimer's disease (AD) and related dementias. Research: Recent studies suggest mid-life hypercholesterolemia and hypertension increase risk of dementia and specifically AD in late life. Cholesterol-lowering medications, the 3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl-coenzyme-A reductase inhibitors, i.e., statins, may reduce the risk of AD. We hypothesize that vascular risk factors increase the risk of AD and/or vascular dementia (VaD) and use of statins reduces this risk. To address these hypotheses, Specific Aim 1 will determine whether the use of statins decreases the risk of AD and/or VaD, and whether these effects are modified by the presence of the Apolipoprotein Ee4 allele. We also investigate whether high serum low-density lipoprotein (LDL) and low serum high-density lipoprotein (HDL) are associated with increased risk for AD and/or VaD.
Specific Aim 2 will determine if hypertension in older age (> 65 years) increases the risk of AD and/or VaD; we will also investigate blood pressure changes prior to the diagnosis of AD and/or VaD. A prospectively enrolled community-based cohort of 2581 initially cognitively normal elderly will provide the framework for this study. Results from the research project will provide insights into vascular risk factors for AD, thus providing additional information toward development of new prevention and treatment strategies. This research plan, together with the didactic and mentored instruction proposed, will provide the career development necessary for the candidate to conduct scientifically rigorous, independently funded, patient-oriented research.
