Alzheimer's Disease Health Center

Study: Alzheimer's Patients Get Less Cancer

Alzheimer's Patients Had 69% Lower Cancer Risk continued...

“We are in the beginning stages of this research,” she says. “There is a lot to be done before concluding that a link exists.”

Alzheimer’s disease specialist David Knopman, MD, agrees, but says his own clinical experience makes him think something is going on.

Knopman is a professor of neurology and a member of the Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn.

“I see (Alzheimer’s) patients for four, five, and six years at an age when cancer is common, and they just don’t seem to die of cancer as often as other patients,” he says. “If there are shared genetic factors at work in cancer and Alzheimer’s disease, the Alzheimer’s community may be able to learn from cancer research and the cancer community can learn from Alzheimer’s.”