Mar 09 2025 2 mins 4
A ‘boom’ of post-World War II babies once filled American nurseries, expanding the population.
And as these baby boomers age, they’re expanding a population of a different sort: the ranks of people diagnosed with dementia.
A new National Institutes of Health-funded study offers troubling news for Americans. The risk of developing dementia after age 55 is now 42% — that’s more than double the risk reported in earlier studies. The risk for men is 35%, and 48% for women.
Dementia, a progressive decline in memory, judgment, and concentration, is tied to aging. Other factors include genetics, obesity, hypertension, diabetes, lack of exercise, poor diet, and mental health challenges like depression.
The study suggests that dementia was previously underestimated for multiple reasons, including faulty health records and death certificates, little oversight of early-stage cases, and underreporting.
The data come from a large study that, since 1987, has tracked the vascular health and cognitive function of nearly 16,000 people as they age.
The coming dementia wave calls attention to the need to boost resources to address this health care concern. While the condition is expected to double in the next four decades for white people, it could triple for Black people.
Researchers say better nutrition education could help buck the trend by improving diets that play a role. Hearing loss also demands attention. Poor hearing is also tied to higher dementia risk, but only one-third of older adults who need them use them.
The study’s authors say affordable hearing aids must be more widely available. In the meantime, wear ’em if you’ve got ’em.
