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Rutgers-Newark researchers have discovered that a genetic variant unique to people of African descent heightens the link between so-called "hardening of the arteries" and Alzheimer's disease.

But researchers say the results could be encouraging. It means those who improve their vascular health may also reduce the risk of Alzheimer's disease.

"This suggests that keeping blood vessels healthy may be especially important for people who screen positive for this genetic risk factor," said Mark Gluck, who leads a lab researching Alzheimer's disease in African Americans, who are more than twice as likely to develop Alzheimer's as other groups.

The study was conducted by the Aging & Brain Health Alliance, which is directed by Gluck, a professor of neuroscience and public health at Rutgers. Researchers asked 143 participants to give blood and saliva samples, have their blood pressure measured and undergo a special kind of MRI that measures the speed at which blood travels through the arteries. All participants were 60 or older and cognitively healthy. The results were recently published in the journal Alzheimer's & Dementia: Translational Research and Clinical Interventions.

Those samples provided researchers with each person's genes, vascular health and level of p-tau, an abnormal brain protein that is detectable in the blood of people in the very early stages of Alzheimer's disease, long before dementia and cognitive impairments arise.

Once those numbers were crunched, the Rutgers team discovered that for people with a particular variant of a gene called ABCA7-80—one that is unique to people of African descent—having stiffer, or less flexible, blood vessels was linked to higher levels of p-tau.

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