10 Reversible Causes Of Dementia

We’ve uncovered 10 underlying issues that may be at the root of dementia, including common vitamin deficiencies and Lyme disease.

- Vera Tweed

The number of Americans with Alzheimer’s disease is rising at a rapid rate, and is expected to more than double by 2050. But a deeper look shows a more encouraging trend—the actual risk of seniors developing the disease is going down.

“The explosion is because we’ve got so many more 80-year-olds and 90-year-olds and 100-year-olds, but it’s not because your chances of developing dementia have gone up,” says Claudia Kawas, MD, a geriatric neurologist and founder of The 90+ Study at the University of California, Irvine. “An 80-year-old now is less likely to get dementia than 20 years ago,” she says. “That’s a pretty profound change to happen in just 20 years, effectively a generation.”

Several large studies have drawn such conclusions. One, at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, looked at more than 20,000 people age 65 and older and found that incidence of dementia was 24 percent lower in 2012 than in 2000.

“There’s no drug to reduce your risk of Alzheimer’s disease, so if people now are lower risk than they were 20 years ago, to my mind, it’s almost exclusively been done by lifestyle,” says Kawas. Cardiologists have helped, she adds, because heart-healthy regimens also reduce dementia risk.

Alzheimer’s, Dementia, What’s the Difference?