APOE e4 genotype and cigarette smoking in adults with normal cognition and mild cognitive impairment: a retrospective baseline analysis of a national dataset

Abstract

Background: APOE e4 genotype is known to be a risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease and atherosclerosis. Recently, published evidence has shown that APOE e4 genotype may also be associated with the cessation of cigarette smoking. Objectives: The aim of this retrospective analysis was to explore whether any past smoking outcomes differed based on APOE e4 genotype in a large national dataset. Methods: Data were extracted from the National Alzheimer’s Coordinating Center’s longitudinal Uniform Data Set study. We limited this retrospective baseline analysis to the normal cognition (n = 2995) and mild cognitive impairment (n = 1627) groups that had APOE genotype and smoking data. Because this was an exploratory retrospective analysis, we conducted descriptive analyses on all variables based on APOE e4 genotype. We controlled for demographic, clinical, medication and neurocognitive data in the analyses. Results: In both the normal cognition group and the mild cognitive impairment group, e4 carriers and e4 non-carriers did not significantly differ on total years smoked, age when last smoked and the average # of packs/day smoked during the years they smoked. In both groups, e4 carriers and e4 non-carriers differed on various neurocognitive measures. Conclusion: These data do not support the recently published evidence of the association between APOE e4 genotype and smoking outcomes. Scientific Significance: Larger prospective clinical trials are needed to further explore the relationship between APOE genotype and smoking outcomes.

• APOE
• e4
• cognitive
• cigarette smoking
• mild cognitive impairment
• neurocognitive

Acknowledgements

Dr. Kalapatapu thanks Dr. Mary Sano and Dr. Xiaodong Luo for mentoring him during his geriatric fellowship at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine. Dr. Kalapatapu also thanks Sarah Monsell at the National Alzheimer’s Coordinating Center at the University of Washington for processing the data request for this analysis. Dr. Kalapatapu also thanks the National Alzheimer’s Coordinating Center publication review committee for approving the manuscript to be submitted to this journal.

Contributors

Dr. Kalapatapu completed the background literature search, completed the statistical analyses under Dr. Delucchi’s guidance and wrote the manuscript. Both authors have approved the final manuscript.