
Exeter [England], May 26 (ANI): Having a faulty geneĀ linked to dementia doubles the risk of developing severe COVIDĀ -19, suggests a recent large-scale study. Researchers at the University of Exeter Medical School and the University of Connecticut School of Medicine analysed data from the UK Biobank, and found high risk of severe COVIDĀ -19 infection among European ancestry participants who carry two faulty copies of the APOE geneĀ (termed e4e4).
One in 36 people of European ancestry have two faulty copies of this geneĀ , and this is known to increase risks of Alzheimerās disease up to 14-fold* and also increases risks of heart disease. Now, the research team has found that carrying these geneĀ mutations doubles the risks of COVIDĀ -19 ā even in people who had not developed these diseases.
The team has previously found that people with dementia are three times more likely to get severe COVIDĀ -19, yet they are not one of the groups advertised to shield ā or shelter in place ā on health grounds. Part of the increased risk effect may have been exposure to the high prevalence of the virus in care homes.
However, the new study, published in the Journal of Gerontology: Medical Sciences, indicates that a genetic component may also be at play. The team found that people with the APOE e4e4 genotype were at double the risk of developing severe COVIDĀ -19, compared to those with the common e3e3 form of the APOE gene.
The team used data from the UK Biobank study, which collects health and geneĀ tic data on 500,000 people. The majority of people in the population and in the sample size have not yet been exposed to the virus.
In this analysis, 2.36 percent (n=9,022) of participants with European ancestries (n=382,188) had the ApoE e4e4 faulty gene, but 5.13 percent (n=37) of those who tested positive for COVIDĀ -19 (n=721) had this genevariant, suggesting the risk is doubled compared to e3e3 (410 per 100,000 versus 179 per 100,000).
āThis is an exciting result because we might now be able to pinpoint how this faulty geneĀ causes vulnerability to COVIDĀ -19. This could lead to new ideas for treatments,ā said Co-author Dr. Chia-Ling Kuo, of the UConn School of Medicine.
āItās also important because it shows again that increasing disease risks that appear inevitable with ageing might actually be due to specific biological differences, which could help us understand why some people stay active to age 100 and beyond, while others become disabled and die in their sixties,ā added Kuo. āSeveral studies have now shown that people with dementia are at high risk of developing severe COVIDĀ -19.
This study suggests that this high risk may not simply be due to the effects of dementia, advancing age or frailty, or exposure to the virus in care homes,ā said the team lead, Professor David Melzer. āThe effect could be partly due to this underlying geneĀ tic change, which puts them at risk for both COVIDĀ -19 and dementia,ā added Melzer. (ANI)