There may be hope for discovering the cause of Alzheimer's disease. Researchers in Israel have a new hypothesis on the biological source of the memory-impairing disease. Since 1995, neurologist Robert Friedland, Ph.D., of Case Western Reserve University, and a team of researchers have collected data in Wadi Ara, an Arab community where Alzheimer's occurs 20% more often than in the general population.
Prior research pointed to a mutated gene called apo-E4. But Friedland's investigation, published recently in Neurology, revealed that only 4% of the residents carried the gene. Now he's focusing on recessive genes, which have traits that are inherited only when both parents carry them--a viable hypothesis considering the high incidence of marriage within extended families in Wadi Ara.
