Women are twice as likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease – KISS FM

Experts are asking that this difference in relation to men be taken into account in future studies.

These are the conclusions reached by a group of international experts led by the Barcelona Institute of Global Health. Research shows that women not only make up the majority of people with Alzheimer’s disease, but they are also twice as likely to develop the disease over their lifetime.

The prevalence of protective and risk factors, the burden of disease morbidity and other comorbid conditions such as cerebrovascular disease differ by sex and gender. It’s connected with biological factors and socially constructed factors.

In this way, researchers strive to “Understanding how sex and gender interact is critical to understanding the mechanisms that support cognitive function and reduce the accumulation of pathologies in aging and Alzheimer’s disease, i.e. resilience and resilience factors.”

Risk of dementia

Although women often show an initial cognitive advantage, Their deterioration occurs more quickly than in men as the disease progresses. This may be due to differences in the development of pathologies, known as Alzheimer’s resilience, or to differences in the ability to maintain normal functioning over time and cope with pathology once it has occurred, known as Alzheimer’s cognitive resilience. Moreover, women tend to be more resilient to begin with.

Cognitive impairment

Greater initial resilience in women is supported by animal studies that have demonstrated a protective role for the X chromosome in Alzheimer’s disease. (Women typically have two X chromosomes, while men have one.) However, this initial resistance disappears as they progress toward clinical diagnoses of mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer’s disease, when they become more vulnerable.

In fact, studies have shown that women are more likely to have abnormal tau protein accumulation in the brain and exhibit a greater burden of vascular pathologies, especially after menopause.

The differential resistance between men and women can be explained by the higher prevalence of physical inactivity and affective disorders in women, as well as biological factors.In this sense, genetic data suggest that resilience may be linked to immune pathways in women and cardiovascular pathways in men. For all these reasons, researchers advocate a sex- and gender-sensitive approach to better understand the complex interplay of biological and social determinants.

Editorial (Agencies)