{"id":1990,"date":"2025-04-03T06:48:18","date_gmt":"2025-04-03T06:48:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1990\/"},"modified":"2025-04-03T06:48:18","modified_gmt":"2025-04-03T06:48:18","slug":"why-do-more-women-have-more-dementia-than-men","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1990\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Do More Women Have More Dementia Than Men?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Alzheimer\u2019s Research UK says that<\/a> \u201cOf all people with dementia in the UK, two in three (65%) are women.\u201d <\/p>\n

In fact, they write, women over 60 are twice as likely<\/a> to develop dementia \u2013 the leading cause of death in the UK<\/a> \u2013 than they are to get breast cancer. <\/p>\n

It can be hard to get clear answers as to why that is. Part of it is likely to be that women simply live longer than men<\/a> on average \u2013 old age is the greatest risk<\/a> factor for dementia. <\/p>\n

But in a recent episode of his podcast Dr Karan Explores<\/a>, surgeon Dr Karan Rajan spoke to doctors <\/a>Dean and Ayesha Sherzai, neurologists and codirectors of the Brain Health and Alzheimer\u2019s Prevention Programme at Loma Linda University Medical Centre, who shared that there may be other factors at play too. <\/p>\n

Why might women have higher instances of dementia?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cWe know that lipid metabolism and how women\u2019s bodies respond to vascular risk factors, whether it\u2019s an abnormal cholesterol panel or abnormal blood pressure, is different\u201d than men\u2019s, Dr Ayesha Sherzai said. <\/p>\n

Cleveland Clinic <\/a>says that women \u201cface unique risks, largely due to differences in anatomy and hormones,\u201d such as narrower blood vessels and fewer red blood cells, when it comes to heart issues.<\/p>\n

Heart health and dementia risk have long been linked<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe also know that in the perimenopausal period, the woman\u2019s body goes through a lot of physiological and neurological changes, because oestrogen is a very important factor in memory creation and in brain health,\u201d the doctor added.<\/p>\n

The jury is still out on<\/a> whether or not oestrogen has protective factors for the brain, though some research done on rats<\/a> showed that the hormone increased the connections in the memory part of their brain.<\/p>\n

The combination of increased effects of vascular issues and the decline in oestrogen as women age \u201cmay increase the risk factors\u201d of dementia for women, the expert says.<\/p>\n

Any other reasons for the gender gap? <\/strong><\/p>\n

Harvard Health <\/a>says that aside from the age difference, women are way more likely to develop Alzheimer\u2019s than men. But they are not more likely to develop other kinds of dementia when you adjust for age. <\/p>\n

Part of the reason for that may be that women are far more likely to experience autoimmune disorders than men. <\/p>\n

That might be because<\/a> women\u2019s immune system is stronger, which may have the effect of creating more amyloid plaques in the body. These plaques have been linked to dementia. <\/p>\n

The university\u2019s site <\/a>recommends taking aerobic exercise, like swimming, jogging, or dancing up for 30 minutes a day, at least five days a week, sleeping well, socialising, and eating well to mitigate the potential risks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Alzheimer\u2019s Research UK says that \u201cOf all people with dementia in the UK, two in three (65%) are…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1991,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[425,105,16,15,1292],"class_list":{"0":"post-1990","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-dementia","9":"tag-health","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-women"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114272698545550196","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1990","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1990"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1990\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1991"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1990"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1990"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1990"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}