APOE and Alzheimer disease: Besides constituting a risk factor for CVD, genetic variants in APOE are strongly linked to the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease (OMIM identifier 104310) with the ε4 haplotype increasing risk about 3.7-fold per copy, whereas the ε2 allele is neuroprotective with an odds ratio (OR) of 0.5 per copy (21, 22).