There was an interesting New York Times article this week about the lower rate of dementia in two recent European studies.
I hadn’t planned on sharing the article as it is more about Alzheimer’s than any of the non-AD dementias in our group, but the PBS NewsHour had a very nice interview tonight (July 17, 2013) on this news. The PBS NewsHour interviewed Dr. Murali Doraiswamy, an Alzheimer’s researcher at Duke University, who was mentioned in the rate of dementia article below.
The PBS NewsHour segment is only seven minutes. You can find a link to the segment plus a transcript here:
www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/health/july-dec13/dementia_07-17.html
(When I was watching the NewsHour live, the lead-in video showed Dr. Adam Boxer at UCSF. But today’s segment was not about UCSF research.)
On the NewsHour, Dr. Doraiswamy noted that:
“We have to differentiate is the risk vs. the total numbers. The total numbers of Alzheimer’s disease are going to climb upwards quite dramatically because older age and the rising number of people who live into their 70s, and 80s and 90s is a huge risk factor for Alzheimer’s. But within each generation, what we’re seeing is a given person’s risk for developing Alzheimer’s might actually reduce and go down.”
Plus, Dr. Doraiswamy surmised that the decline in dementia was probably due to decline in vascular dementia “because we now have better ways to treat cardiovascular disease.”
Here’s a link to the New York Times article on these research findings:
www.nytimes.com/2013/07/17/health/study-finds-dip-in-dementia-rates.html
Dementia Rate Is Found to Drop Sharply, as Forecast
By Gina Kolata
New York Times
Published: July 16, 2013
Robin