{"id":311315,"date":"2025-10-17T17:56:14","date_gmt":"2025-10-17T17:56:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/311315\/"},"modified":"2025-10-17T17:56:14","modified_gmt":"2025-10-17T17:56:14","slug":"up-to-13-of-dementia-diagnoses-may-actually-be-a-treatable-condition-sciencealert","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/311315\/","title":{"rendered":"Up to 13% of Dementia Diagnoses May Actually Be a Treatable Condition : ScienceAlert"},"content":{"rendered":"

As the global population ages<\/a>, more of us face frightening cognitive decline, personally or in our loved ones. More than 10 million new cases<\/a> of dementia are recorded worldwide each year.<\/p>\n

But a study published in 2024 suggests as many as 13 percent of people diagnosed with dementia in the US may actually be misdiagnosed and left struggling with a condition that can be treated.<\/p>\n

“Health care providers [must be] made aware of this potential overlap between dementia and hepatic encephalopathy, which is treatable,” said<\/a> Virginia Commonwealth University hepatologist Jasmohan Bajaj in July 2024.<\/p>\n

Related: Millions of Us Have Likely Lost Our Smell Without Even Realizing It<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Hepatic encephalopathy<\/a> \u2013 cognitive impairment caused by liver failure \u2013 affects more than 40 percent of patients with advanced liver disease (cirrhosis<\/a>). The brain impairments it causes are hard to distinguish from dementia.<\/p>\n

Our livers regulate<\/a> the levels of most chemicals in our bodies, from filtering them from the blood to aiding digestion.<\/p>\n

Beyond alcohol’s well-known harms<\/a>, other risks to the liver include the hepatitis virus<\/a>, high cholesterol, obesity and diabetes<\/a>, stress, and aging. But if caught early enough and with the right treatment, damage to our livers can be reversed.<\/p>\n

Much of this can be mitigated through changes in diet and behavior, and there are even more potential drug treatments<\/a> on the horizon.<\/p>\n

\"AnUp to 13 percent of people diagnosed with dementia in the US may have a misdiagnosis. (Rido\/Canva)<\/p>\n

In fact, treatment of hepatic encephalopathy has resolved cognitive impairments in at least two patients<\/a> who had been diagnosed with dementia.<\/p>\n

“He is a different person!” the wife of one of the patients notes<\/a>, after his memory loss, falls, tremors, and hallucinations were all resolved.<\/p>\n

A recent study<\/a> in mice suggests that even the impacts of aging on the liver may be reversible if caught early enough.<\/p>\n

“We’ve shown that aging exacerbates non-alcoholic liver disease\u2026 and by reducing this impact, we can reverse the damage,” explained<\/a> Duke University hepatologist Anna Mae. “You are never too old to get better.”<\/p>\n

In an earlier 2024 study<\/a>, Bajaj and colleagues reviewed the medical records of 177,422 US veterans diagnosed with dementia between 2009 and 2019.<\/p>\n

None of them had been diagnosed with liver disease, but the team found over 10 percent had high fibrosis 4 (FIB-4) scores, an index to measure liver scarring, meaning they were very likely to have cirrhosis<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"diagramCirrhosis is the result of persistent liver damage, where healthy tissue has been gradually replaced with scar tissue. (Kuo Du et al., Nature Aging, 2024<\/a>)<\/p>\n

In the new study, Virginia Commonwealth University biostatistician Scott Silvey, Bajaj, and colleagues repeated this review with 68,807 medical records of patients from a national database who aren’t veterans, to see if their earlier results reflected the general US population.<\/p>\n

To their surprise, even more patients with high FIB-4 scores were found in this population \u2013 almost 13 percent.<\/p>\n

\"Mid<\/a><\/p>\n

“The prevalences and determinants of a high FIB-4 are striking, including a greater proportion of patients who were not white in the high FIB-4 group,” explain<\/a> Silvey and team.<\/p>\n

“While we did not study the specific factors behind these disparities, a lack of access to therapy or medical care in both dementia care and comorbidity care could contribute.”<\/p>\n

Related: 80% of Americans With Dementia May Not Even Know They Have It<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Once our livers start to malfunction, it stresses other tissues<\/a> in our bodies, including kidneys, pancreas, and heart, as well as our brains. So it makes sense to prioritize our liver health<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“This important link between dementia and liver health emphasizes the importance of screening patients for potentially treatable contributors to cognitive decline,” said<\/a> Bajaj.<\/p>\n

This research was published in The American Journal of Medicine<\/a>.<\/p>\n

An earlier version of this article was first published in July 2024.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As the global population ages, more of us face frightening cognitive decline, personally or in our loved ones.…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":311316,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[210,352,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-311315","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-msft-content","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115390800754074182","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311315","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=311315"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311315\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/311316"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=311315"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=311315"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=311315"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}