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Title: Younger Generations Less Likely To Have Dementia, Study Suggests

Link: https://science.slashdot.org/story/25/06/03/0...

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.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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