LONDON: A stunning discovery from recent research highlights that men’s brains become smaller faster than women’s during aging; even though Alzheimer’s disease still occurs mainly in women.
Men typically take more risks with their heart health, but neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s mainly concern women.
The World Health Organization (WHO) reported that in 2021, nearly 57 million individuals across the globe had dementia, with almost 10 million fresh cases reported each year. At the same time, women suffering from Alzheimer’s account for more than half of the entire population with the disease.
Up to the age of 45, women have a 20% and men a 10% chance of getting Alzheimer’s, according to research. The scientists’ curiosity has been piqued for long years the new study has opened a door to finding out.
The research, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), has been based on about 12,000 brain scans taken from almost 5,000 healthy individuals aged 17 to 95.
The scientists noticed that a man’s brain undergoes aging differently. A number of the cerebral areas that carry out memory, motion, and visual perception shrink much faster. The outer covering of the male brain also gets thinner as time goes by.
Greens, however, have also had their brains altered in the course of life, but the degree of loss of volume is much less and it takes much longer.
Still, the study stressed that men’s brain shrinkage was not a symptom of Alzheimer’s disease. Professionals speaking for the scientific community point out that, among others, the main causes for the remaining Alzheimer’s disease in women are: the hormonal drop during menopause, the different immune response, genetic susceptibility and the longer life span of women.
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It was a surprise to the researchers that they could not find anything in a woman’s biology that would lead to the conclusion that she is more prone to Alzheimer’s disease than a man.
