Genetic geroscience and Alzheimer's disease: The pleiotropy is the point!

Abstract

Geroscience aims to understand how the biology of aging serves as a shared contributor to multiple age-related health conditions. Genetic variants that influence multiple traits are said to exert pleiotropic effects. The study by Pan and colleagues applied a modern statistical model to identify genetic variants with potentially pleiotropic effects by assessing their joint association with Alzheimer's disease and related dementias and another age-related comorbidity (e.g., coronary heart disease, hyperlipidemia, cancer). Motivated by Pan and colleagues, this commentary introduces the concept of genetic geroscience as a paradigm for identifying genetic variants with potentially pleotropic effects on multiple age-related health conditions.