Why do women have a higher risk of Alzheimer's disease than men?
Did you know that over two-thirds of the 6.2 million persons in the United States with Alzheimer's disease are women? This means that Alzheimer's disease affects nearly twice as many women as it does men. Why do women have a higher risk of Alzheimer's disease than men?
Women live longer than males.
The first and most essential reason is that women are more likely than males to live longer lives. A baby girl born in 2019 is predicted to live five years longer than a baby boy, according to actuarial life tables: 81 against 76 years.
The most important risk factor for Alzheimer's disease is age: the older you get, the more likely you are to develop the condition.
For example, the incidence (number of people diagnosed with Alzheimer's every year) varies by age:
Each year, 4 out of every 1,000 adults aged 65 to 74 get Alzheimer's disease.
Every year, 32 persons aged 75 to 84 develop Alzheimer's disease.
Each year, 76 out of 1,000 people aged 85 and up develop Alzheimer's disease.
So, one reason there are more women with Alzheimer's disease than men is that there are 5.7 million more older women in our society than older males, and the older you are, the more susceptible you are to have Alzheimer's disease.
However, that isn't the complete story.
Alzheimer's disease affects more women than men.
If you're a woman, your odds of having Alzheimer's disease later in life are slightly higher than if you're a man. Women were more likely than men, regardless of age, to be diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease starting around the age of 80, according to a study that monitored 16,926 people in Sweden. Similarly, a Taiwanese study discovered that women have a higher risk of developing Alzheimer's disease over the course of seven years than men. In a meta-analysis of Alzheimer's disease incidence in Europe, it was discovered that 13 women out of 1,000 developed the disease per year, compared to only seven men.
Women do not have a higher rate of non-dementia. Alzheimer's
The fact that you are not more likely to get dementia from a source other than Alzheimer's disease is one hint to the solution to this problem. In a study of dementia rates in Sweden, for example, both men and women were equally likely to develop non-dementia Alzheimer's as they grew older. The fact that Alzheimer's disease rates change by gender but not non-dementia Alzheimer's rates shows that Alzheimer's disease and gender must interact in some way.
Amyloid deposition in Alzheimer's disease may represent a defense mechanism against infections.
Another piece of the jigsaw comes from Harvard researchers, who have proposed that amyloid, one of the pathological components of Alzheimer's disease, could be one of the culprits.
Women are more likely than men to suffer from autoimmune illnesses.
The final piece of the puzzle is that women are roughly twice as likely as men to suffer from an autoimmune disease. The cause of this disparity is unknown, although it is established that women's immune systems are normally stronger than men's, and several autoimmune illnesses are more prevalent during pregnancy. It's possible that women's immune systems evolved to shield the fetus from illnesses throughout time. As a result of their stronger immune systems, women are more likely than men to develop amyloid plaques.
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Assembling the components
When all of this data is combined, one plausible explanation for why women's Alzheimer's disease risk is higher than men's in addition to genetics emerges.
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