title: Relative telomere length in patients with late-onset Alzheimer's dementia or vascular dementia.
abstract: Telomeres generally shorten with age. An accelerated shortening of the telomeres has been linked to several age-related disorders. We hypothesized that the relative length of telomeres could discriminate between patients with late-onset Alzheimer's disease (AD) and vascular dementia (VaD). A quantitative real-time PCR method was used to calculate the relative telomere length in 76 age-matched and sex-matched, newly diagnosed late-onset AD or VaD patients recruited from our Memory Unit. No significant difference was found in the relative telomere length between AD and VaD cases neither in men (P=0.315) nor women (P=0.12). Thus, we could not confirm that the length of telomeres would predict which form of dementia, late-onset AD or VaD that develops.
authors.affiliation: Department of Clinical Chemistry, Orebro University Hospital, Sweden.
authors.forename: Zarah M
authors.initials: ZM
authors.lastname: Löf-Ohlin
authors.forename: Nils-Olof
authors.initials: NO
authors.lastname: Hagnelius
authors.forename: Torbjörn K
authors.initials: TK
authors.lastname: Nilsson
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000544:Alzheimer Disease / Q000235:genetics*; D001483:Base Sequence; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D015140:Dementia, Vascular / Q000235:genetics*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D016133:Polymerase Chain Reaction / Q000379:methods; D016615:Telomere / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism