{"id":8655,"date":"2026-06-16T13:26:16","date_gmt":"2026-06-16T17:26:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/genetics\/?p=8655"},"modified":"2026-06-16T13:26:16","modified_gmt":"2026-06-16T17:26:16","slug":"alzheimers-and-smoking-interaction-study","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/genetics\/2026\/06\/16\/alzheimers-and-smoking-interaction-study\/","title":{"rendered":"Alzheimer&#8217;s and smoking interaction study"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span data-contrast=\"auto\">A large multi-ancestry genome-wide study co-authored by BU Biomedical Genetics faculty has\u00a0identified\u00a0specific genes that may help explain why cigarette smoking is associated with increased risk for Alzheimer&#8217;s disease (AD).<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"auto\">This study was published in\u00a0<\/span><i><span data-contrast=\"auto\">Alzheimer&#8217;s &amp; Dementia: The Journal of the Alzheimer&#8217;s Association<\/span><\/i><span data-contrast=\"auto\">\u00a0(November 2025) and was conducted by BU Biomedical Genetics contributors\u00a0<\/span>Dr. Gyungah R. Jun, Dr. Lindsay A. Farrer, Ryan Dacey, Jesse Mez<span data-contrast=\"auto\">, and colleagues.\u00a0Using data from 22,032 European\u00a0and 3,126 African ancestry participants\u00a0from\u00a0the Alzheimer\u2019s Disease Genetics Consortium (ADGC) and the Framingham Heart Study, the team examined how genetic variants interact with lifetime smoking status to influence AD risk.\u00a0The study\u00a0found a\u00a0significant genome-wide\u00a0association in the\u00a0APAF1\u00a0and MIXL1\/LIN9 genes,\u00a0present exclusively among smokers and\u00a0across all ancestry groups,\u00a0that contributed to a higher Alzheimer\u2019s risk. This means that for some\u00a0individuals,\u00a0smoking may interact with specific genes to raise their chances of developing AD, which can help explain why\u00a0certain people are more vulnerable to AD than just their genetics would predict.<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{&quot;134233117&quot;:false,&quot;134233118&quot;:false,&quot;201341983&quot;:0,&quot;335551550&quot;:1,&quot;335551620&quot;:1,&quot;335559685&quot;:0,&quot;335559737&quot;:0,&quot;335559738&quot;:0,&quot;335559739&quot;:160,&quot;335559740&quot;:279}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><i><span data-contrast=\"auto\">Read the full study in Alzheimer&#8217;s &amp; Dementia:<\/span><\/i><span data-contrast=\"auto\">\u00a0<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1002\/alz.70922\"><span data-contrast=\"none\">https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1002\/alz.70922<\/span><\/a><span data-ccp-props=\"{}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A large multi-ancestry genome-wide study co-authored by BU Biomedical Genetics faculty has\u00a0identified\u00a0specific genes that may help explain why cigarette smoking is associated with increased risk for Alzheimer&#8217;s disease (AD).\u00a0 This study was published in\u00a0Alzheimer&#8217;s &amp; Dementia: The Journal of the Alzheimer&#8217;s Association\u00a0(November 2025) and was conducted by BU Biomedical Genetics contributors\u00a0Dr. Gyungah R. Jun, Dr. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26113,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/genetics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8655"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/genetics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/genetics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/genetics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/26113"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/genetics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8655"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/genetics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8655\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8656,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/genetics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8655\/revisions\/8656"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/genetics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8655"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/genetics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8655"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/genetics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8655"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}