A study that was published on Monday in the journal Nature Medicine suggests that the risk of dementia may be far higher than previously believed.
According to earlier research, roughly 14% of men and 23% of women will experience dementia at some point in their lives. That estimate is raised by the latest study to about 42% for both men and women.
Not participating in the study, Dr. Ted Huey, director of the memory and aging department at Butler Hospital in Rhode Island, said, “I think this is going to be a very important study, and I think it is going to change the way we look at dementia.”
Dr. Josef Coresh, the director of the NYU Grossman School of Medicine’s Optimal Aging Institute and the study’s leader, stated that people living longer than previous generations are the main cause of the rise in dementia risk and prevalence, which the researchers predicted would double by 2060.
According to Coresh, the number of dementia cases will double overall simply because the population is becoming older. According to him, the number of cases is predicted to increase among Black Americans, who are at a higher risk.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimate that 10% of Americans over 65 have been diagnosed with dementia.
More than 15,000 Americans who had been monitored for more than 20 years were included in the study. Over half of the participants were women, and approximately 25% of the participants were Black, two demographics considered to be at higher risk.
The study found that while the average risk of dementia in the lifetime of a 55-year-old is 42%, the risk varies with age. The worst of it happened after someone became 85. The study found that the typical person’s risk of dementia was 4% between the ages of 55 and 75. A person’s risk was around 20% by the time they were 85 years old. It wasn’t until a person turned 95 that the risk reached 42%.
The pattern was similar, although the risk was larger for women and Black Americans.
By the age of 75, the risk was almost twice as high for Black Americans, at 7%. The risk increased to 28% at 85 and 42% at 95. This risk was 3% for women at age 75, 21% at age 85, and 48% at age 95.
According to Coresh, we must consider the reasons behind this danger as well as ways to mitigate it.
Previous studies have indicated that Black Americans may have higher rates of diabetes and hypertension, primarily as a result of unequal access to care, and institutional racism, which can lead to stress and increase the risk of dementia.
The fact that women often outlive males is mostly responsible for the increased risk observed in women, but this isn’t the complete picture. In some age groups, women may be at higher risk than men for Alzheimer’s disease, the most prevalent form of dementia, due to a genetic variation known as APOE-4. The findings of studies investigating the potential role of pregnancy in dementia risk have been conflicting.
Why is dementia risk higher than before?
According to earlier research, roughly 14% of men and 23% of women would experience dementia at some point in their lives. According to specialists, there are a number of reasons why the 42% risk that these researchers discovered is significantly higher.
The participants in earlier research, such as the Frankfurt Heart Study and the Rotterdam Study, which were both released in the late 1990s, were less varied and all resided in the same city. According to specialists, it’s a widespread problem in dementia research.
As a primary care physician at Atlanta’s Good Samaritan Health Clinic, Dr. Monica Parker, an associate professor of neurology at Emory University’s Goizueta Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center, treats patients. English is not spoken by many of her patients, who are immigrants.
Parker, who is also the chair of the Alzheimer’s Foundation of America’s medical, scientific, and memory-screening advisory board and has served as a paid educational consultant for Eli Lilly, Biogen, and Eisai, three companies that manufacture Alzheimer’s medications, stated that the majority of our academic health centers aren’t set up to see non-English-speaking people, meaning this segment of the population is frequently left out of the research.
According to Huey, some studies might have had trouble staying in touch with patients who got dementia.
However, he said that the researchers in this study did a very good job of following people.
Lastly, the majority of dementia data only identifies one type: Alzheimer’s disease.
It’s like saying “cancer” when you mention dementia. According to Michelle Mielke, a professor and chair of epidemiology and prevention at Wake Forest University School of Medicine in North Carolina, there are numerous subtypes.
According to CDC data, Alzheimer’s disease accounts for up to 80% of dementia cases, making it the most prevalent kind. However, Mielke noted that studies that just monitor Alzheimer’s disease ignore dementia brought on by other illnesses such neurological and cardiovascular disorders.
According to her, the aging population is contributing to an increase in all aging-related disorders, including stroke, which will raise the risk of vascular dementia. We might become victims of our own success at times. There are many more comorbidities and people are living longer.
These comorbid conditions raise a person’s risk of dementia and include stroke, high blood pressure, and Type 2 diabetes. According to Dr. Peter Whitehouse, a neurology professor at Case Western Reserve University in Ohio, more cases that would have previously gone undiagnosed are probably being identified.
Medicare started paying doctors for yearly wellness visits that include cognitive decline assessment in 2011 as part of the Affordable Care Act.
According to Whitehouse, if more people visit a doctor’s office, they might be screening more, which would result in more cases.
Dr. Andrea Bozoki, division chief of cognitive and behavioral neurology at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine, advised individuals to keep in mind that not everyone will get dementia in their later years, despite the fact that the new data is striking in comparison to earlier figures.
According to her, dementia affects less than half of those who live to be 95 years old. Regardless of age, dementia is not an unavoidable aspect of aging.
There are several strategies to reduce the risk of dementia, even though some variables that raise the risk, including heredity or exposure to air pollution, may be beyond an individual’s control.
According to Mielke of Wake Forest University, ensuring that diabetes and hypertension are under control will undoubtedly improve cognitive function.
Eating a nutritious diet and getting enough sleep, which includes treating conditions like sleep apnea, can also reduce the risk of dementia. Generally speaking, anything that is beneficial to the heart is also beneficial to the brain, and vice versa.
According to Coresh, we are aware that the vascular risk factor changes that benefit your heart also benefit your brain.