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- The number of dementia cases worldwide may exceed 150 million in 2050
- Scientists call for acceleration of prevention and treatment research
The Alzheimer’s Society’s 2021 International Conference in Denver did announce good news: Dementia cases worldwide are expected to triple by 2050, affecting more than 150 million people! While positive factors such as improved access to education indicate a possible decrease in the prevalence of this dementia (less than 6.2 million cases by 2050), other causes such as smoking, increased body mass index and cases of hyperglycemia can counteract this development by Causing an increase of 6.8 million cases of dementia.
To reach these expectations, Scientists from the University of Washington, They used data on global health trends between 1999 and 2019. Of these, they considered that cases of dementia would rise from 57.4 million in 2019 to 152.8 million in 2050. This, according to them, may be attributed to the weakening effect of population growth and aging, ” Although the importance of these two factors varies by region of the world.” “The projected sharp increase in the number of people anticipating dementia underscores the vital need for research focused on finding effective treatments and prevention interventions; without treatments to stop, slow or prevent Alzheimer’s disease and all other types of dementia, that number will only increase beyond 2050,” said Emma Nichols. , who spearheaded this work, “will continue to impact individuals, caregivers, health systems, and governments around the world.”
At the same time, researchers looked at deaths from this dementia. Here, too, the findings are troubling: Alzheimer’s-related mortality could have risen by 38% between 1990 and 2019.
350,000 new early dementias each year
Bad news, too, for the age at which the disease appears. Scientists at Maastricht University in the Netherlands studied data on how many people developed dementia before the age of 65. With a disease rate of 10 new cases per 100,000 people, they concluded that 350,000 people develop dementia at a younger age each year. Specifically, the incidence of this early dementia appears to be similar in men and women and is higher for Alzheimer’s disease than for vascular dementia.
“These findings should lead to increased awareness among health professionals, researchers and policy makers because they show that a large number of people are newly affected with dementia earlier in the year each year and show the need for investment to better prevent and treat dementia in the future. Early onset,” he said. say scientists in Maastricht.
