Midlife Vascular Risk Factors and Late-Life Amyloid Deposition

Vascular risk factors have been associated with Alzheimer disease (AD). Extracellular amyloid plaques are one of the pathologic features of AD. To examine the association between vascular risk factors and amyloid deposition, researchers conducted the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) study. They initially assessed vascular risk factors in participants at midlife, from 1987 to 1989, including body-mass index (BMI) ≥30, smoking history, hypertension, diabetes, and high cholesterol. Amyloid-ligand positron emission tomography (PET) with florbetapir was obtained from 2011 to 2013. Late-life amyloid deposition was determined by standardized uptake value ratio (SUVR) cutoffs on florbetapir PET scans.

There were 322 participants included i…