Younger Generations Less Likely To Have Dementia, Study Suggests

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: People born more recently are less likely to have dementia at any given age than earlier generations, research suggests, with the trend more pronounced in women. According to the World Health Organization, in 2021 there were 57 million people worldwide living with dementia, with women disproportionately affected. However, while the risk of dementia increases with age, experts have long stressed it is not not an inevitability of getting older. 'Younger generations are less likely to develop dementia at the same age as their parents or grandparents, and that's a hopeful sign,' said Dr Sabrina Lenzen, a co-author of the study from the University of Queensland's Centre for the Business and Economics of Health. But she added: 'The overall burden of dementia will still grow as populations age, and significant inequalities remain -- especially by gender, education and geography.'

Writing in the journal Jama Network Open, researchers in Australia report how they analyzed data from 62,437 people aged 70 and over, collected from three long-running surveys covering the US, England and parts of Europe. The team used an algorithm that took into account participants' responses to a host of different metrics, from the difficulties they had with everyday activities to their scores on cognitive tests, to determine whether they were likely to have dementia. They then split the participants into eight different cohorts, representing different generations. Participants were also split into six age groups. As expected, the researchers found the prevalence of dementia increased by age among all birth cohorts, and in each of the three regions: UK, US and Europe. However, at a given age, people in more recent generations were less likely to have dementia compared with those in earlier generations.

'For example, in the US, among people aged 81 to 85, 25.1% of those born between 1890-1913 had dementia, compared to 15.5% of those born between 1939-1943,' said Lenzen, adding similar trends were seen in Europe and England, although less pronounced in the latter. The team said the trend was more pronounced in women, especially in Europe and England, noting that one reason may be increased access to education for women in the mid-20th century. However, taking into account changes in GDP, a metric that reflects broader economic shifts, did not substantially alter the findings. A number of factors could be contributing to the decline. 'This is likely due to interventions such as compulsory education, smoking bans, and improvements in medical treatments for conditions such as heart disease, diabetes, and hearing loss, which are associated with dementia risk,' said Prof Tara Spires-Jones, the director of the Centre for Discovery Brain Sciences at the University of Edinburgh.

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