Study blames ‘sexism’ for causing dementia in women

Women are disproportionately more likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease than men, which has long been attributed to longer life and genetic differences.

But now a new study from Columbia University Irving Medical Center has blamed it on a new cause: sexism.

One researcher, who reviewed data from more than 21,000 people, said inequality in access to resources and power caused damaging changes in women’s brains that led to dementia.

They found that women in America’s “most sexist” states had nine years of additional cognitive decline compared to their peers in the country’s least sexist states.

Dr. Justina Avila-Rieger, an associate professor who led the study, said: ‘Our findings suggest that tackling social inequality could be a powerful way to reduce the burden of Alzheimer’s disease among women.

“What we… know is that structural inequalities shape individual health outcomes by creating barriers to health-promoting opportunities and resources.

“Ultimately, these exposures cause differences in chronic physical health problems that directly impact brain health, the onset of cognitive impairment, and ultimately dementia.”

About 6.2 million Americans suffer from Alzheimer’s disease, the most common form of dementia, and nearly two-thirds of them are women.

CDC estimates also show that women live an average of five years longer than men, up to 80.2 years compared to 74.8 years for men.

In the study, scientists calculated a “structural sexism” score for each state by comparing, among other things, the ratios of men to women in the labor force and maternal mortality rates for the years 1910 to 1960.

This was then compared with estimates of dementia rates among women in each state born in the 1920s and 1930s.

The researchers tried to get a snapshot of cultural attitudes at the time these women were growing up and may have suffered the brain damage that precedes dementia.

Results – published in the journal Alzheimer’s and dementia – showed that women in more sexist states were significantly more likely to develop dementia than women in less sexist states.

Overall, they said Mississippi was the most sexist state in the 1960s, while Connecticut was the least sexist.

The researchers suggested no biological mechanism to explain the difference.

But they hypothesized that differences in youth exposure due to structural sexism, such as less access to the workplace, could be behind these differences.

Dr. Avila-Reiger said: ‘It is possible that early life exposure could be a critical period for structural inequality, with direct or indirect consequences that accumulate over time.

‘We also need to tease apart which aspects of structural sexism have the most impact on cognitive health. This is important for making recommendations to policy makers.’

Dementia is a general term for a group of neurological disorders that cause a decline in brain function, of which Alzheimer’s is the most common.

Although the overall number of dementia cases is expected to rise in the future, the rate at which people of both sexes are diagnosed is expected to decrease.

Researchers have suggested that this shift may be related to more health-conscious lifestyles, including wearables that encourage people to exercise and watch their diet.

In 2022, Harvard researchers argued that age is “the biggest risk factor” for Alzheimer’s disease.

But they added that other factors were at play, pointing out that rates of non-Alzheimer’s dementia were the same among men and women.

Researchers suggested this could be related to the fact that women have stronger immune systems, which they say could increase the risk of amyloid beta protein plaques forming in their brains – which have been linked to causing the disease.