May seem ridiculous, but worth a shot

[Lilac]

Hi! My name is Lila and I'm 18. I posted about a month ago here on my concern with the fact of having periodontitis and knowing that it's a risk factor for Alzheimer's, and not knowing my APOE4 status and you all were able to help with my anxiety a bit.
Alzheimer's is a bit of an obsession with my health anxiety and I've been thinking about it in relations to what very little genetic information I DO have about myself which is from my 10th grade biology class.
This might seem wildly unrelated to any of my previous concerns, but I have convinced myself everything is correlated. We did an experiment in that class to see which of us were "tasters" and "non-tasters" of PTC, thiourea, and sodium benzoate. Turns out, I cannot taste PTC or sodium benzoate, but I can taste thiourea. Of course, remembering this, I made the mistake of taking my concerns to Dr. Google.
From what I can find, there is a correlation between the variation of the TAS2R38 gene that I have and an increased risk of periodontal disease, which we know I have.
Now this might seem a bit far fetched, but does anyone know of any correlation between variations of the TAS2R38 and Alzheimer's, either late-onset or early-onset? I should establish once again that I have no family history of either.
Thank you for reading this and entertaining my silly hypochondriac thoughts!

[NF52]

Hi! My name is Lila and I'm 18. I posted about a month ago here on my concern with the fact of having periodontitis and knowing that it's a risk factor for Alzheimer's, and not knowing my APOE4 status and you all were able to help with my anxiety a bit.
Alzheimer's is a bit of an obsession with my health anxiety and I've been thinking about it in relations to what very little genetic information I DO have about myself which is from my 10th grade biology class.
This might seem wildly unrelated to any of my previous concerns, but I have convinced myself everything is correlated. We did an experiment in that class to see which of us were "tasters" and "non-tasters" of PTC, thiourea, and sodium benzoate. Turns out, I cannot taste PTC or sodium benzoate, but I can taste thiourea. Of course, remembering this, I made the mistake of taking my concerns to Dr. Google.
From what I can find, there is a correlation between the variation of the TAS2R38 gene that I have and an increased risk of periodontal disease, which we know I have.
Now this might seem a bit far fetched, but does anyone know of any correlation between variations of the TAS2R38 and Alzheimer's, either late-onset or early-onset? I should establish once again that I have no family history of either.
Thank you for reading this and entertaining my silly hypochondriac thoughts!

Hi Lila,
Your 10th grade biology teacher would be thrilled to know that anyone from class remembered that experiment, much less which substance were used. From what I saw using Google Scholar, it seems like two things are pretty clear:

• Many of the recent articles on links between TAS2R38 (Non-tasters) and periodontal disease are in "open source" journals, which charge several thousand dollars to researchers to publish articles that might not be accepted through a riogours peer-review process at a more prominent journal. It doesn't mean the science is wrong; but it might mean the science is based on too little data, or the authors are making conclusions are not supported by the data and are "speculative" Phrases likes "this could account for" or "it seems reasonable that..." are often dinged by reviewers as sketchy. I tend to read open source/pay to publish articles with a healthy dose of skepticism.

• The non-tasters MAY be more likely to not have an immune response to toxic substances or bacteria--but it seems like that MAY is still very much up in the air.

In other words, people get cavities and gum disease for lots of reasons and being a non-taster may be correlation, not causation. I taste bitter things really well! As a result I am shocked at what other people can enjoy. Yet I've had more cavities in my life than most people. In my case, it's probably due more to having thin enamel than ApoE 4 or my taste buds. In your case, your gun disease, which doesn't sound severe or widespread, is probably due to not having the good fortune to see a dentist once in a while. My poor enamel is here to stay; your ability to see dentist hopefully will improve soon!

Here's a chart I found interesting: If you were an Aboriginal Australian, you'd have lots of company as a non-taster. If you're from White European ancestry, you would have about 25% of the people in your native village with the same genes--and they survived long enough to have a smart descendant like you.

Image 9-9-24 at 7.33 PM.jpeg

https://www.nidcd.nih.gov/health/statis ... tc-or-prop

And nowhere did I see any link to early-onset Alzheimer's, which has some very specific genes (PSEN-1 and PSEN-2 are some) and those families ALL know that they have early onset AD, even if they don't know the genetic cause.

You are wise, but in this case, I think you are also safe as a non-taster!

Nancy