More than seven million Americans have some type of dementia and an estimated 12 million will have it by 2040.
As the Baby Boomer generation continues to age there will be a significant rise in the number of people who are elderly, particularly those over 85 years old and at increased risk of developing dementia.
But there is a glimmer of hope.
While the overall number of people living with dementia is expected to increase due to the aging population, the rate at which new cases of dementia are being diagnosed has been declining.
Researchers are now beginning to understand what kinds of medical advances, shifts in public health awareness, and changing rates of dementia-causing chronic diseases have worked, knowing that to home in on what they know is effective will drive a longer-spanning trend in the right direction.
Numerous data analyses have backed up new findings that the rate of new cases of diagnosed dementia in the US and Europe has declined by 13 percent per decade between 1988 and 2015, suggesting that fewer new cases are emerging relative to the growing size of the senior population.
A study also found that a smaller percentage of older adults are currently living with dementia compared to people of the same age in previous decades.
The above shows the prevalence of dementia – proportion of people that have dementia – by year from 2000 to 2016. It reveals a gradual decline in rates
People are more interested in enhancing their personal health and shelling out big bucks to do it than ever before.
With that has come generational shifts in the way people understand their health, thanks to unfettered access to expert advice and how they care for themselves to prevent devastating diseases like dementia.
Researchers from Harvard University identified a 13 percent decline in dementia incidence every decade. That was an average; one study showed a decrease of as much as 19 percent.
If the trend of decreasing dementia rates in Europe and North America continues, it could mean that 15 million fewer people in high-income countries will develop dementia by 2040, compared to earlier predictions about the global impact of the disease.
The Harvard team studied around 49,000 people 65 and up across seven different studies on dementia and its prevalence conducted in the US and Europe. Each study collected data from their subjects for several decades, with some collecting data every few years.
Then, they calculated how dementia risk changed over 10-year periods by analyzing data from multiple 5-year periods within each study.
Lori Chibnik, a biostatistician at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, said: ‘The steady decline in incidence over three decades suggests that preventive efforts involving lifestyle education and health interventions such as blood pressure control and antithrombotic medication can offset at least part of the growing burden of dementia from global gains in life expectancy.’
Another analysis published in a 2024 issue of The Lancet Public Health concluded that the 27 studies they analyzed, which included public records in the US and Europe, the research ‘consistently reported a declining incidence in dementia.’
As exposure to health knowledge has expanded drastically since the dawn of the internet, people have become increasingly interested in their personal nutrition and fitness, family history of certain diseases, how their work lives leave room for fulfilling personal lives, and spending more time with their loved ones.
People are more engaged than ever in improving their personal health by staying up to date with doctor visits and and educating themselves on healthy lifestyle habits
Smoking rates, which contribute to a 30-50 percent higher risk of dementia, have significantly declined over the past two decades
This interest has empowered several generations to make healthier choices to reduce the risk of developing a chronic disease, including dementia.
Rates of smoking – which increases the risk of developing dementia by 30 to 50 percent – have plummeted in the past two decades.
The American Lung Association reported that rates have plummeted from about 43 percent of Americans smoking in 1965 to less than 12 percent in 2022. Over the last five years alone, smoking rates have fallen by 17 percent.
And the percentage of people who currently smoke went down from 27 percent to just over 18 percent over that period.
It’s true that a growing number of people are becoming severely obese worldwide and especially in the US. At the same time, data on wealthy countries, including the US, shows signs that the rate of increase in body mass index (BMI) is slowing down.
Dr Boyd Swinburn, an expert in public health and nutrition at the University of Auckland, told Stat in these places, ‘the real takeoff was in the ’80s, ’90s, early 2000s and then it started to plateau.”
The national obesity rate also fell from last year, which statisticians believe could be tied to Ozempic’s explosion on the market, alongside that of Wegovy, Zepbound, and Moujaro – blockbuster drugs taken for weight loss.
Improved lifestyle education and widened access to doctor checkups since the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) became law in 2010 have also improved people’s ability stay on top of their health to reduce their risk of dementia-linked chronic diseases such as cardiovascular disease.
Unhealthy arteries are believed to play a significant role in whether a person will develop dementia, particularly vascular dementia.
The above graph shows findings from a new CDC report, which states that obesity rates have fallen for the first time ever, from 42 to 40 percent, though they still remain higher than 2013-2014
Signs are pointing to better nationwide cardiovascular health. The number of American adults with heart disease fell from over six percent in 2009 to 5.5 percent in 2019.
When arteries become hardened or narrowed, blood cannot effectively carry oxygen to the brain, depriving brain cells of what they need to survive.
This can result in coronary artery disease, which increases dementia risk by about 27 percent.
But signs are pointing to better nationwide cardiovascular health. The number of American adults with heart disease fell from over six percent in 2009 to 5.5 percent in 2019.
The Harvard researchers said that it’s difficult to pinpoint what precisely is causing new dementia diagnoses to fall because so many factors are changing at once, including lifestyle improvements, better education, and health treatments like controlling blood pressure or using medications to prevent blood clots.
Dr Chibnick said: ‘Providing this evidence of a decline is the first step toward elucidating the factors at play behind that decline and eventually effective interventions to promote brain health.’
