We conducted a case-control study of 116 patients with the clinical diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease (AD) in seven Italian centers. One hundred sixteen hospital controls and 97 population controls were matched by age, sex, and region of residence to the cases. A structured questionnaire was administered to the next-of-kin of cases and controls by trained interviewers to identify possible risk factors. Genetic, viral, toxic, immunologic, medical, surgical, and personality factors were investigated. Dementia among first- or second-degree relatives and advanced age of the mother at subject's birth (age over 40) were associated with AD. Head trauma was more frequent in cases than in either hospital or population controls, but the differences were not significant. Our data did not confirm the previously reported association with antecedent thyroid disease or family history of Down's syndrome.

Our data from a population-based study support the hypothesis that estrogen-replacement therapy is associated with a reduced prevalence of Alzheimer's disease in postmenopausal women. Prospective clinical trials are required to enable women and their physicians to weigh risks and benefits of estrogen-replacement therapy for the prevention of dementia.

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EUROSTROKE is a collaborative study among ten European research centres to investigate (1) the variation in incidence of fatal and non-fatal ischaemic and haemorrhagic stroke among populations in different European countries; (2) whether the observed differences in stroke incidence across countries can be explained by differences in prevalence of established cardiovascular risk factors; (3) the relative importance of selected dietary factors (potassium intake, smoking, alcohol consumption), haemostatic disturbances (fibrinogen) and co-morbidity (rheumatic heart disease, atrial fibrillation) compared to established risk factors as determinants of the occurrence of ischaemic and haemorrhagic stroke. The EUROSTROKE database is drawn from ten European population-based prospective follow-up studies (cohorts) and is designed as a case-control study nested within these ten ongoing studies.