Recently, the involvement of the inflammatory response in Alzheimer's disease (AD) has received considerable attention. The gene encoding for interleukin-6 (IL-6) is interesting since IL-6 has been reported not only to be involved in immune functions but also in AD. We investigated whether the IL-6-174 G/C polymorphism is associated with late onset AD (LOAD) in the Finnish subjects. The G allele was over-represented in ApoE4-LOAD patients but remained unimportant in all and in the ApoE E4 carriers. Interestingly, the G allele frequency was lower in our population in both AD patients and in controls compared to Southern European populations.