Lost the car
keys? Forgot someone's name? Many elderly people suffer slight cognitive
problems but men are more likely than women to suffer momentary memory
lapse or senior moments, according to a U.S. study.
Researchers from the Mayo
Alzheimer's Disease Research Center in Rochester, Minnesota, found 19
percent of men aged 70 to 89 years had so-called mild cognitive
impairment, compared to only 14 percent of women.
People
with mild cognitive impairment have problems with memory but can carry
out everyday activities and generally realize that they're forgetful.
The National Institutes of Health says "mild cognitive impairment" falls
in between normal forgetfulness and dementia.
Researcher
Dr. Ronald Petersn said the findings were surprising because
Alzheimer's disease, which is preceded by this type of mental decline,
affects more women than men.
Even
after accounting for differences in education, age, and diseases like
diabetes and hypertension, men had about 50 percent higher odds than
women of having mild cognitive impairment.
"The
gender differences were somewhat surprising to us because most people
believe that women are at higher risk than men," Petersen told Reuters
Health.
He said not everyone with
mild cognitive impairment develops dementia but some people do which
makes it a risk factor for Alzheimer's disease.
An
estimated 15 percent of people with mild cognitive impairment end up
with full-blown dementia each year. In the general population, that
number is between one and two percent.
The study, published in the journal Neurology (link.reuters.com/bar78n), involved more than 2,000 randomly sampled elderly people from Olmsted County, Minnesota.
The researchers spent hours testing each participant specifically for mild cognitive impairment and dementia.
About a quarter of the seniors had cognitive problems beyond the signs of normal aging, including Alzheimer's.
Mild
impairment became more common with older age but it also turned out
that the more education people had under their belt, the less likely
they were to have cognitive problems.
Petersen said it was unclear how to explain the finding.
The
researchers speculated that perhaps men get memory problems earlier in
life, but then decline more slowly than women. In other words, the
reason more men have mild cognitive impairment might be that more women
are skipping that stage and going directly to dementia.
While
there aren't any drugs available to treat mild cognitive impairment,
Petersen said lifestyle changes could have a positive effect.
He
recommended reading and going to the movies, as well as keeping up with
friends and family, eating healthy foods and being physically active.
"There are more and more data coming out indicating that some of these lifestyle modifications may work," he said.