Brain Health is Women's Health

Description

After advanced age, female sex is the major risk factor for late-onset Alzheimer’s disease (AD). While AD is not unique to females, women constitute roughly two-thirds of patients living with AD-dementia, with postmenopausal women accounting for over 60% of all those affected.  

 While previously, the 2:1 ratio was attributed to women’s longer life expectancy relative to men, several emerging lines of evidence point to sex- and gender-specific AD risk factors rather than life span. Recent studies have identified over thirty AD risk factors that impact the sexes differently, with female sex generally being more severely impacted. These include chiefly genetic (e.g. family history, APOE genotype), medical (e.g., depression, stroke, diabetes), hormonal (e.g., menopause, thyroid disease), and lifestyle risks (e.g., smoking, diet, exercise, intellectual activity). As many of these AD risk factors are modifiable, especially if addressed in midlife, identification of sex-specific risks is pivotal towards development of targeted AD risk reduction strategies.  

 
The mission of the NIH-sponsored Weill Cornell Women’s Brain Initiative is to help understand how sex differences affect brain aging and AD risk, and discover sex-based molecular targets and precision therapies to prevent, delay, and minimize this risk. Our multi-modality brain imaging studies implicate the menopause transition as an early initiating risk factor for AD in women. As women approach midlife, there seems to be a critical window of opportunity not only to detect signs of early AD but to then intercede with strategies to reduce or prevent that risk.