Education and Risk for Alzheimer's Disease: Sex Makes a Difference EURODEM Pooled Analyses.

The hypotesis that a low educational level increases the risk for Alzhelmer's disease remains controversial. The authors studied the asociation of years of schooling with the risk for incident Dementla cases were identifled in a two-stage procedure that included a detailed diagnostic assessment of screen-postive subjects. Dementia and Alzheimer's disease were diagnosed by international research criteris. Educational level was categorized by years of schooling as low (≤7), middle (8–11), or high (>12). Relative risks (95% confidence intervals)were estimatted by using Poission regression, Adjusting for age, sex, study canter, smoking status, and self-reported myocadial infraction and storke. There were 493 (328) incident cases of dementia (Alzheimer's disease) and 28, 061 (27, 839) person-years of follow-up. Compared with women with a high level of education, those with low and middle levels of education had 4.3 (95%confidence Interval: 1.5, 11.9) and 2.6 (95% confidence interval: 1.0, 7.1) times increased risks, respectively, for Alzheimer's disease for women only raises the possibllity that unmeasured conlounding explains the previously reported increased risk for Alzhemer's disease for persons with low levels of education, Am J Epidemiol 2000; 151: 1064-71 [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]