HOUSTON -It’s a hard fact of life, and it’s harder for women than anyone else. 5 million Americans live with Alzheimer’s, two thirds of them, women. New numbers from the Alzheimer’s Association show that women 65 and over are nearly twice as likely to develop dementia and other Alzheimer’s related diseases than men.
“Women are more likely than men to develop Alzheimer’s disease purely because age is the primary risk factor for developing Alzheimer’s disease and women live longer than men,” Mallory Freitag with the Alzheimer’s Association of Houston explains.
What’s worse is a new figure showing women are also twice as likely to develop Alzheimer’s as they are breast cancer. But still, it remains on the most misunderstood and underfunded diseases facing Americans today. Folks at the Alzheimer’s Association hope these startling new numbers will change that.
“There’s still a lot of stigma associated with Alzheimer’s disease,” Freitag laments. “I wish there wasn’t, but there’s a lot of misunderstanding.”
Contrary to what you may believe, researchers say Alzheimer’s isn’t hereditory and it doesn’t run in your family. Everyone with a brain is at risk. And what you do now can make all the difference in how you live tomorrow.
“We don’t have a cure for it. we still don’t know exactly what causes it, and I think one of the first steps for community members is to understand more about this disease, to raise awareness to it, to understand what the warning signs are; I think that’s a very important first step.”
