It has been proven that in women the risk of developing dementia in old age, as well as mortality for this reason, is on average higher than in men. However, the reason for these gender differences is unknown. Researchers from the University of New South Wales (Australia), whose article was published in the journal PLoS Medicinehave suggested that reproductive factors such as the age of onset of menstruation, pregnancy, age of menopause and so on. All these events are associated with changes in the hormonal background, primarily with fluctuations in the level of the sex hormone estrogen in the body.
Scientists analyzed data on more than 273,000 women and 229,000 men who had no signs of dementia at the start of the study. Information regarding these people was collected for almost 12 years.
In the end, the following factors were found to be associated with an increased risk of dementia in women:
– too early (under 12 years old) and too late (over 14 years old) age of onset of the first menstruation (the risk is increased by an average of 20% and 19%, respectively, compared with the onset of the reproductive period at the age of 13 years);
– too early (under 21 years old) age of the first birth (the risk is increased by an average of 43% compared with the first birth at 25-26 years old;
– too early (under 47 years old) offensive menopause (the risk is increased by an average of 32% compared with the onset of menopause at the age of 50);
– hysterectomy (removal of the uterus), especially if the ovaries were also removed during the operation (in this case, the risk of dementia is more than doubled).
The risk of dementia, on the contrary, is reduced in women who have been pregnant at least once in their lives, regardless of whether the pregnancy ended in childbirth or abortion. In addition, a reduced risk of dementia is associated with a long reproductive period, late menopause, and the use of hormonal contraceptives (but not hormone replacement therapy).
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At the same time, the researchers found that the graph of the relationship between the number of children and the chances of developing dementia is exactly the same for both sexes and has a U-shape. The lowest risk of dementia in parents of two children, and in childless people and parents with many children (four or more children), it is increased. This may indicate that it is not only regarding hormones, many other factors influence the development of dementia, the scientists note.
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