Dementia risk twice as high as everyone thought

Dementia is on the rise in the US, and the risk is twice as high as medicine had believed.

People have a 42 percent risk of dementia once they reach 55, say researchers at New York University’s Langone Health.

The risk—double the estimates predicted by earlier studies—translates into around 500,000 new cases of dementia each year in the US, and this is anticipated to increase to more than 1 million new cases among the over-55s by 2060.  By the age of 75, one in two people will develop dementia.

The researchers tracked the rate of dementia from the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities Neurocognitive Study (ARIC-NCS), which, since 1987, has tracked the vascular health and cognitive function of nearly 16,000 participants as they age.

From 1987 until 2020, there were 3,252 study participants who developed dementia, which translates into a lifetime risk of 42 percent, an average of the 35 percent risk in men and a 48 percent risk in women, who tend to live longer and so increase their chances of dementia.

There was also a higher risk among black adults and in those who carried a variant of the APOE4 gene, which codes for a protein that carries cholesterol and other lipids in the bloodstream. Having a certain version of APOE4 is thought to be the single biggest genetic risk factor in developing late-onset Alzheimer’s disease.

What do you think? Start a conversation over on the... WDDTY Community