A neurology specialist has elucidated her belief that women are more susceptible to receiving an Alzheimer’s disease diagnosis than men.
The theory emerged when a British presenter reported the symptoms that led to her own early-onset dementia diagnosis.
Earlier this year, Nature released a study indicating that nearly two-thirds of Alzheimer’s patients are women, and experts are attempting to figure out why.
“Epidemiologically, we see that for almost all neurological diseases, there are differences in how many biological women and men are affected,” Anna Bonkhoff, resident and research fellow in neurology at Harvard Medical School and Mass General Brigham, noted.
For instance, multiple sclerosis and migraine tend to affect more females, whereas brain tumors and Parkinson’s disease do the opposite.
“Just based on these numbers, you get the feeling that something needs to underlie these differences in terms of the biology,” she told me.
In September, the JAMA Neurology journal released a paper titled ‘Role of the X Chromosome in Alzheimer’s Disease Genetics.’
Scientists researching the article revealed that the X chromosome, of which biological women have two, is likely to “play a role in Alzheimer’s disease sex differences,” but that “more investigation” is needed to corroborate the findings.
Regarding this study, Bonkhoff stated, “A number of genes for the immune system and controlling brain formation are situated on the X chromosome; thus, the doses vary to some extent between men and women.” That appears to have an effect.”
However, the specialist believes that menopause could play a role in explaining why women are more susceptible to dementia than men.
Menopause normally occurs in biological women aged 45 to 55, with the average age in the United States being 52, according to the Cleveland Clinic.
While Bonkhoff is interested in how menopause affects the chance of receiving an Alzheimer’s disease diagnosis, she acknowledges that it is not the ‘sole factor.’
“Aging is relevant by itself,” she noted. “Additionally, there is a significant amount of intriguing research examining the effects of aging on the immune system, which appears to have implications for cognitive changes.”
Early-onset Alzheimer’s disease is a kind of dementia that affects people under the age of 65. Fiona Phillips, a British TV personality, received her diagnosis in 2022 and made it public a year later.
In extracts from her new book, Remember When: My Life With Alzheimer’s, the presenter discussed the mild signs she had before being formally diagnosed with the brain condition.
These consisted of hourly anxiety episodes, mental fog, and mood swings.
“The simplest thing, like going to the bank to ask about my account, would send me into a total panic, and there were mood swings too, which meant even I was finding my behavior unpredictable,” she said.
“And yet, despite my desire not to be like that, I couldn’t change it. I felt like I had lost control of my life.”
Phillips first attributed her problems to menopause after hearing how other celebrities, like Gabby Logan and Davina McCall, were suffering.
However, after performing some basic activities with a doctor and having an MRI scan and a lumbar puncture, the actor was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease at the age of sixty-one.
The mother-of-two and her husband, Martin Frizell, acknowledged being ‘shell-shocked’ by the prognosis but decided to continue living life as ‘normally as possible.’