Study blames ‘sexism’ for causing dementia in women

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

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

Researcher, who reviewed data on more than 21,000 people, said that inequality in access to resources and power was causing damaging changes in women’s brains that leads to dementia.

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

Dr Justina Avila-Rieger, an associate scientist who lead the study, said: ‘Our findings suggest that addressing social inequities may be a powerful way to lower the burden of Alzheimer’s among women.

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

‘Eventually, these exposures produce disparities in chronic physical health conditions that directly influence brain health, the onset of cognitive impairment and, ultimately, dementia.’

About 6.2million Americans have Alzheimer’s, the most common form of dementia, of which almost two-thirds are women.

CDC estimates also show that women live five years longer than men on average, to 80.2 years compared to men’s 74.8 years. 

In the study, scientists calculated a ‘structural sexism’ score for each state by comparing ratios of men-to-women in the workforce and maternal mortality among other factors for the years 1910 to 1960.

This was then compared to estimates of dementia rates among women in each state who were born in the 1920s and 30s.

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 women in more sexist states were significantly more likely to develop dementia than those in less sexist states.

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

The researchers did not suggest a biological mechanism to explain the difference.

But they hypothesized that differences in early life exposures due to structural sexism, such as less access to the workplace, may be behind the differences. 

Dr Avila-Reiger said: ‘It’s possible that early life exposure may 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 in terms of making recommendations to policy makers.’

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

While the overall number of cases of dementia is expected to rise in the future, the rate at which people of both genders are diagnosed is expected to decline.

Researchers have suggested this shift may be down to more health conscious lifestyles, including wearables encouraging people to exercise and watch their diets.

Writing in 2022, Harvard researchers argued that age was ‘the greatest 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 between men and women.

Researchers suggested this could be linked to women having stronger immune systems, which they said could raise the risk of amyloid beta protein plaques forming in their brain — which have been linked to causing the disease.