Native American Ancestry is associated with lower risk of Alzheimer’s Disease: results from the Genetic of Alzheimer’s disease in Peruvian Populations (GAPP) study.

Alzheimer’s Disease Related Dementias (ADRD) is not equally distributed among racial and ethnic groups. The APOE‐ɛ4 allele alone does not explain the different frequency of the disease. In fact, Hispanics (HI) and African Americans e4 non‐carriers still show a two‐to‐four‐fold higher incidence of ADRD, compared with non‐Hispanic Whites. Ancestry is an understudied yet a critical aspect of health disparities, as it may explain observed differences in frequency of ADRD across ethnic groups. We recently launched a genetic study in Peruvians, whose genome is characterized by large Native‐American ancestry proportions (higher than other HI populations such as Caribbean Hispanics or Mexicans), and studied the association between Ancestry, APOE‐e4 and ADRD.