Can We Inherit Alzheimer's From Our Parents?

Alzheimer's is heritable to a degree. But there are other factors at play, too.

Written byAlex Orlando
| 1 min read
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Scientists think that a variety of factors determine how develops. Increasingly, research has found that genes are a key player in the onset of the degenerative brain disease. But Alzheimer’s can manifest at different stages in life. Whether the disease is early-onset or late-onset can dictate how it is passed down.

typically takes place between the ages of 30 and 60, and is fairly rare — it afflicts less than 10 percent of everyone with the disease. But . Scientists have found three genes where mutations can cause early-onset familial Alzheimer’s, or FAD. If either your (biological) , you have a chance of inheriting it as well. However, not everyone with early-onset Alzheimer’s has mutations in those three genes.

For most people with Alzheimer’s, symptoms start to crop up around the age of 65 or later. While researchers are still working to understood what, exactly, leads to late-onset Alzheimer’s, they think a cocktail of genetic and environmental factors shape someone’s risk for getting the disease. So, if a relative has Alzheimer’s, that doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll inherit the disease. But you may be more susceptible than others.


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Meet the Author

  • Alex is a senior associate editor at Discover. Before he joined the Discover team in 2019, he worked as a reporter for the Half Moon Bay Review and as a staff writer for Houston’s Texas Medical Center. His work has also appeared in The Verge and San Francisco Magazine. Alex holds a master's degree in journalism from UC Berkeley.View Full Profile

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