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bioRxiv · 10.1101/556506

Genetic risk score for Alzheimer's disease is associated with poor hearing

Brenowitz, W.·Filshtein, T.·Yaffe, K.·Walter, S.·Hoffmann, T.·Jorgenson, E.·Whitmer, R.·Glymour, M. M.
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Abstract

IntroductionIncipient dementia or shared genetics may partly explain the association between hearing loss and dementia. We evaluated whether genetic variants known to increase Alzheimers disease (AD) also influence hearing difficulty. MethodsUK Biobank participants aged 56+ with Caucasian genetic ancestry self-reported difficulty hearing and hearing with background noise (n=244,915) and underwent objectively measured hearing assessments (n=80,074). Poor objective hearing was defined as >-5.5 dB speech reception threshold on a Digit Triplet Test. We evaluated whether an AD genetic risk score (AD-GRS; range -1.2 to 1.9), the weighted sum of 23 previously identified AD-related polymorphisms, predicted objective or self-reported poor hearing, using age, sex, and genetic ancestry adjusted logistic regression models. ResultsHigher AD-GRS predicted objectively measured poor hearing (OR=1.06; 95% CI: 1.01, 1.11) and self-reported problems hearing with background noise (OR=1.03; 95% CI: 1.00, 1.05). DiscussionUsing novel methods, we found evidence that AD genetic risk influences hearing loss.

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Brenowitz, W., Filshtein, T., Yaffe, K., Walter, S., Hoffmann, T., Jorgenson, E., Whitmer, R., Glymour, M. M.. 2019-02-22. Genetic risk score for Alzheimer's disease is associated with poor hearing. https://doi.org/10.1101/556506

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