Table 1.
Baseline characteristics of ESTHER participants with information on dementia diagnosis and biomarkers of neurodegenerative diseases
| Baseline (2000–2002) | Subgroup with biomarker measurements | p-valueb | ||
| Study sample (n = 5926), N (%) | Casesa (n = 226), N (%) | Controlsa (n = 476), N (%) | ||
| Sex | ||||
| Female | 3224 (54.4) | 127 (56.2) | 259 (54.4) | |
| Male | 2702 (45.6) | 99 (43.8) | 217 (45.6) | 0.6573 |
| Education | ||||
| ≤ 9 years | 4219 (71.2) | 187 (82.7) | 367(77.1) | |
| 10–11 years | 868 (14.6) | 16 (7.1) | 49 (10.3) | |
| ≥ 12 years | 719 (12.1) | 15 (6.6) | 51 (10.7) | 0.0810 |
| APOE ε4 genotype | ||||
| APOE ε4 + c | 1466 (24.7) | 91 (40.3) | 123 (25.8) | |
| APOE ε4 − d | 4148 (70.0) | 124 (54.9) | 341 (71.6) | < 0.0001 |
| Lifetime history of depression | ||||
| Yes | 860 (14.5) | 33 (14.6) | 63 (13.2) | |
| No | 5063 (85.4) | 193 (85.4) | 413 (86.8) | 0.6225 |
| Lifetime history of diabetes | ||||
| Yes | 822 (13.9) | 47 (20.8) | 66 (13.9) | |
| No | 4971 (83.9) | 176 (77.9) | 407 (86.5) | 0.0174 |
| Lifetime history of cardiovascular disease | ||||
| Yes | 456 (7.7) | 29 (12.8) | 28 (5.9) | |
| No | 5352 (90.3) | 193 (85.4) | 440 (92.4) | 0.0016 |
| Subjective cognitive complaints | ||||
| No | 1688 (28.5) | 36 (15.9) | 115 (24.2) | |
| Occasional | 3501 (59.1) | 142 (62.8) | 303 (63.7) | |
| Persistent | 737 (12.4) | 48 (21.2) | 58 (12.2) | 0.0014 |
| Mean (SD) | Mean (SD) | Mean (SD) | ||
| Age | 61.6 (6.5) | 66.9 (5.1) | 61.2 (6.5) | < 0.0001 |
| GFAP | n.a | 132.5 (79.7) | 86.7 (46.8) | < 0.0001 |
| NFL | n.a | 22.0 (11.9) | 15.7 (8.3) | < 0.0001 |
| p-tau181 | n.a | 2.1 (1.2) | 1.7 (1.2) | < 0.0001 |
Percentages might not sum up to 100 because of rounding and missing values
GFAP glial fibrillary acidic protein, NfL neurofilament light chain, p-tau181 phosphorylated tau181, SD standard deviation
aCases and controls from the nested case–control study embedded within the ESTHER cohort
bp-values derived from t-test tests for continuous and chi-square tests for categorical variables
cAPOE ε4 + ; participants carrying the APOE ε4 allele (ε2ε4, ε3ε4, ε4ε4)
dAPOE ε4 − ; participants not carrying the APOE ε4 allele (ε2ε2, ε3ε2, ε3ε3)