Women’s brains decline more quickly than men’s

WOMEN experience ‘significantly faster’ declines in brain power than men, researchers have found.

And this suggests that women have an increased risk of developing dementia.

But as they performed better on cognitive tests at an earlier age compared to men, followed by a faster decline, women are less likely to have brain diseases identified early on.

Researchers studied how gender can affect the risk of developing dementia by pooling data from 26,000 people in the US. The average age of participants at the start of the test was 58.

They assessed changes in global cognition – the process of acquiring and understanding knowledge – before studying how their memory and executive function, also known as mental skills, changed over time. The results, published in the journal Jama Network Open, showed that women had a higher baseline performance in cognition, executive function and memory.

But eight years later, they had ‘significantly faster declines’ in cognition and executive function than men. And these declines raise the risk of dementia. However, memory skills decreased at the same rate for men and women.

The differences between the genders could be due to sex hormones, the structure of the brain, genetics or lifestyle factors, said the researchers from Michigan University.

Their results suggest that women will undergo cognitive decline roughly 4.72 years faster than men. The study also said that they will face a decline in executive function almost two years faster than men.

The researchers concluded: ‘Our findings that women have faster declines in global cognition and executive function mean women would have greater risk for being diagnosed with dementia.’

It added: ‘Our findings that women had higher initial cognitive scores suggest clinicians might not observe significant cognitive decline in women until substantial loss has occurred.’

And because the decline is faster, women may need to have regular cognitive tests to allow for earlier detection of dementia.

Previous studies have shown that women are at higher risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease but this could, in part, be because women live longer.

Recent research shows that women who don’t return to work after having a baby are more likely to have faster memory decline than those who do. Researchers from the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health in Los Angeles followed 6,000 women over 12 years.

They found that rates of memory decline after the age of 55 were slower for those who spent a substantial amount of time in the paid workforce before turning 50.