Association between autoimmune diseases and Alzheimer's disease: analysis using big data tools

The objective is to analyze the prevalence of Alzheimer's disease in patients with and without a diagnosis of different autoimmune diseases and the possible association between both pathologies.

A multicenter, retrospective, cohort study was conducted to study the prevalence of Alzheimer's disease among patients diagnosed with various autoimmune diseases compared to the general population. Data from electronic medical records from the Castilla-La Mancha healthcare system were analyzed using Natural Language Processing through the Savana Manager® artificial intelligence clinical platform. A total of 1,028,356 patients were analyzed, including 28,920 individuals with Alzheimer's disease and 999,436 control patients.

Out of the 12 autoimmune diseases analyzed, 5 showed a significant association with Alzheimer's disease with p < 0.05. Myasthenia gravis had an increased prevalence of AD with OR 1.49 (95% CI 1.11-2), systemic lupus erythematosus with OR 2.42 (95% CI 2.02-2.88), rheumatoid arthritis with OR 1.38 (95% CI 1.24-1.54), polymyalgia rheumatica with OR 2.01 (95% CI 1.08-2.23), and pernicious anemia with OR 2.06 (95% CI 1.59-2.66). The remaining autoimmune diseases analyzed did not show a higher prevalence of Alzheimer's disease compared to the general population.

There may be an association between certain systemic autoimmune diseases and Alzheimer's disease. Further studies are needed to confirm our findings, establish causality, and explore the underlying mechanisms of this association.