Science: Theoretically - New clues on Alzheimer's

And another gene: this one, for Alzheimer's. An American team, also writing in Nature Genetics, say the two forms (A and G) of the gene which controls production of the enzyme bleomycin hydrolase (BH) confer different risks of developing the degenerative brain disease. People with two copies of the "G" form have about twice the normal risk of developing Alzheimer's, according to the research. It's one of a handful of genes found since 1993 to be a risk factor for the disease.

So what does bleomycin hydrolase do? No one's sure. Yeasts have it, people have it, and one thing it does is inactivate a compound known as bleomycin, used in cancer chemotherapy. After that? Well, it affects your susceptibility to Alzheimer's ...