Alzheimer’s Effect on Women v. Men

Historically, statistics show that Alzheimer’s Disease effects women way more often than men—nearly two thirds of those suffering from the disease are women. It has long been the theory that women live longer and therefore have more time to develop the illness. An annual Alzheimer’s conference, however, has created a different theory for this uneven statistic, reporting that fewer men are being accurately diagnosed and that physicians should pay more attention to younger patients.

Looking at one state’s brain bank, of the brains that were affected by Alzheimer’s, 51% were men and 49% women. Women are often diagnosed at older ages and have more typical symptoms compared to men who are normally younger when the disease strikes and have atypical symptoms. Another factor affecting historical research is how the disease affects women’s brain differently than men’s, often attacking the hippocampus and cortex respectively. The conference also reported several other visible risk factor differences between men and women.

See Tara Bahrampour, Men May Get Alzheimer’s as Much as Women; We Just Haven’t Known How to Spot It, Washington Post, July 26, 2016.

Special thanks to Lewis Saret (Attorney, Washington, D.C.) for bringing this article to my attention.