Alzheimer’s to hit 1-in-8 Boomers
In its second annual statistical report, the Alzheimer’s Association projects that 10 million baby boomers will suffer from the disease.
[...] Fewer people are dying from heart disease, stroke and conditions such as breast and prostate cancer. If you avoid those illnesses, or beat them through successful treatment, you still have to die eventually of something. And the older people get, the greater the chance they’ll develop, and possibly die from, Alzheimer’s.
One aspect of the report says that, if they live to age 55, women are nearly twice as likely to develop Alzheimer’s as men. The report’s authors say that’s also age-related. When researchers measure the risk of developing Alzheimer’s at any particular age, men and women show no real difference [...]. But to the extent that they outlive men, women are considered more likely to develop the Alzheimer’s.