While there are clinically available technologies to detect changes to the brain and some treatments for the neurodegenerative disease, they target a more advanced stage of Alzheimer’s. More than 5 million Americans already have Alzheimer’s, a number expected to more than double by 2050.
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“There’s something else going on in terms of the biology [or] the environment for women”, Yaffe says.
New research suggests that a simple saliva test may someday be able to tell if a person is at risk of developing Alzheimer’s, HealthDay News reported.
Roberta Diaz Brinton, a professor at the University of Southern California’s School of Pharmacy, said that her research has shown that women may have higher Alzheimer’s risk because estrogen has such an important effect on regulating the energy supply in the brain. And by the age of 65, women without the disease have a one in six chance of developing the disease during the remainder of their lives. “Because research indicates that Alzheimer’s and other dementias develop over several decades, increasing physical activity and reducing sedentary behavior beginning in early adulthood may have a significant public health impact”, she added. Weiner said that possible answers could lie in women’s genetic code, but it could also have something to do with their lifestyle, childbearing, exercise, hormones or diet. But after the researchers factored in ApoE4 status, as well as age, education, baseline cognition score and follow-up time, women were still more likely to cognitively decline at a faster rate than men, the scientists said.
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The looming threat of Alzheimer’s disease can be terrifying, especially if you have a family history.
Sapkota, a 25-year-old neuroscience graduate student, presented the U of A study Sunday at the Alzheimer’s Association worldwide Conference in Washington, D.C. Three other studies that were also presented suggest brain scans and memory tests could also hold the keys to understanding the likelihood of someone developing Alzheimer’s.
“Considerably more women develop dementia in the Western world than men and this isn’t just because they live longer”. But at a press conference at the Alzheimer’s meeting, Kristine Yaffe, of the University of California, San Francisco, said that view is changing. Someone with larger cognitive reserves, therefore, can function with fewer symptoms than someone with lesser reserves, even if both have the same amount of damage caused by degenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s.
The team discovered specific biomarkers in the groups with known Alzheimer’s or mild cognitive impairment, in comparison with the natural aging group, according to CNN. This happened to both men and women, but it measurable declines came faster in women and women had more evidence of brain shrinkage after surgery than men did, Schenning’s team found.
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HAMILTON: Lin says over that eight-year period, the difference was dramatic. A new study found that women lose cognitive function faster than men once the first signs of memory loss and impairment in thinking are noticed.
