The gene, O6-Methylguanine-DNA-methyltransferase, or MGMT, plays an important role in how the body repairs damage to DNA in both men and women. But researchers did not find an association between MGMT and Alzheimer’s in men.
“It’s a female-specific finding — perhaps one of the strongest associations of a genetic risk factor for Alzheimer’s in women,” said senior study coauthor Lindsay Farrer, chief of biomedical genetics at Boston University School of Medicine.