Sex and dementia risk

by Dr Norman Swan

Vive la difference! Risk factors for dementia vary between the sexes, say French researchers.

02 06 2008

Now I need to warn you that this Health Minute is about sex and dementia.

And having got your attention, sorry to disappoint, but this isn't about bonking your brain back into shape.

It's about how women seem to have a higher risk of dementia than men, even allowing for the fact they live longer.

Research in France has followed thousands of older people for many years, looking at their thinking ability and memory. It has analysed whether men and women have the same or different risk factors for dementia.

And – surprise, surprise – some factors are the same and some are different. The same risks of dementia between the sexes include increasing age, diabetes, high blood pressure, stopping education early, and obesity.

The different ones are that depression in women seems to predict later dementia, as does the consumption of medications which have what's called an anti-cholinergic effect. And there are quite a few that have this.

In men it was stroke.

The good news in this study was that these risk factors didn't make dementia inevitable – far from it – but could give an idea of better targeting ways of preventing thinking decline.