Health

Study: Women with Mild Memory Problem Worsen Faster Than Men

Published

11 years ago

July 22, 2015

LAURAN NEERGAARD, AP Medical Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) — Older women with mild memory impairment worsened about twice as fast as men, researchers reported Tuesday, part of an effort to unravel why women are especially hard-hit by Alzheimer’s.

Nearly two-thirds of Americans with Alzheimer’s are women.

At age 65, seemingly healthy women have about a 1 in 6 chance of developing Alzheimer’s during the rest of their lives, compared with a 1 in 11 chance for men. Scientists once thought the disparity was just because women tend to live longer — but there’s increasing agreement that something else makes women more vulnerable.

“Women are really at the epicenter of the Alzheimer’s disease crisis,” said Dr. Kristine Yaffe of the University of California, San Francisco. “We don’t really understand what this is all about.”

A series of studies presented Tuesday at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference uncovered signs of that vulnerability well before Alzheimer’s symptoms hit.

First, Duke University researchers compared nearly 400 men and women with mild cognitive impairment, early memory changes that don’t interfere with everyday activities but that mark an increased risk for developing Alzheimer’s. They measured these people’s cognitive abilities over an average of four years and as long as eight years for some participants.

The men’s scores on an in-depth test of memory and thinking skills declined a point a year while the women’s scores dropped by two points a year.

Age, education levels and even whether people carried the ApoE-4 gene that increases the risk of late-in-life Alzheimer’s couldn’t account for the difference, said Duke medical student Katherine Lin, who coauthored the study with Duke psychiatry professor Dr. P. Murali Doraiswamy. The study wasn’t large or long enough to tell if women were more at risk for progressing to full dementia.

Nor could it explain why the women declined faster, but the researchers said larger Alzheimer’s prevention studies should start analyzing gender differences for more clues. And two other studies presented Tuesday offered additional hints of differences in women’s brains:

—A sample of 1,000 participants in the large Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative compared PET scans to see how much of a sticky protein called beta-amyloid was building up in the brains of a variety of men and women, some healthy, some at risk and others with full-blown Alzheimer’s. Amyloid plaques are a hallmark of Alzheimer’s, and growing levels can help indicate who’s at risk before symptoms ever appear.

“Overall, women have more amyloid than men,” even among the cognitively normal group, said Dr. Michael Weiner of the University of California, San Francisco. The study couldn’t explain why, although it didn’t appear due to the risky ApoE-4 gene, which seemed to make a difference for men with Alzheimer’s but not women.

—Some seniors who undergo surgery while knocked out by general anesthesia suffer lasting cognitive problems afterward, often expressed to doctors as, “Grandma was never the same after that operation.” Tuesday, researchers reported that here again, women are at higher risk of getting worse.

Dr. Katie Schenning of the Oregon Health & Science University tracked records of more than 500 participants in two long-term studies of cognitive aging, which included a battery of brain tests. About 180 participants underwent 331 procedures involving general anesthesia.

Over seven years, people who had undergone surgery with general anesthesia declined faster on measures of cognition, their ability to function and even brain shrinkage than people who hadn’t had surgery. But women declined at a significantly faster rate than men, Schenning said.

“It is worth letting our older patients know that they should perhaps talk about this with their practitioner, that this is a possibility and consider whether or not they need to undergo procedures that are considered to be elective,” she said.

Schenning didn’t have amyloid measurements for these people; other studies have suggested that the people most at risk may have brewing cognitive problems already.

The anesthesia alone isn’t the culprit, she cautioned. Indeed, animal research presented Tuesday showed that surgery in general can spur inflammation-causing molecules to cross into the brain and impair how nerve cells communicate.

Together, the studies show how much more research is needed into the Alzheimer’s gender question, said UCSF’s Yaffe, who wasn’t involved in Tuesday’s studies but was part of a recent Alzheimer’s Association meeting to start determining those next steps.

“It’s not just that women are living to be older. There’s something else going on in terms of the biology, the environment, for women compared to men that may make them at greater risk, or if they have some symptoms, change the progression,” Yaffe said.

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Doctors Seeing More Cases of Preventable Childhood Illnesses

OAKLAND POST — Physicians have said vaccine skepticism has expanded beyond childhood immunizations. Doctors also reported growing resistance to other preventive treatments.

Published

2 weeks ago

June 17, 2026

bpusa-syndication

By Stacy M. Brown

Doctors across the United States say they are treating children for illnesses that routine vaccinations once made increasingly uncommon, raising concerns that years of declining immunization rates are beginning to reverse decades of public health progress.

Pediatricians have described seeing more cases of whooping cough, rotavirus infections, bacterial pneumonia and other potentially life-threatening illnesses that vaccines have long helped suppress. Some physicians reported treating conditions they had rarely encountered during their careers, while others said that growing vaccine hesitancy is changing how emergency rooms and hospitals care for children.

The reports come as measles outbreaks continue to spread across multiple states and vaccination coverage remains below federal public health targets.

Johns Hopkins University’s International Vaccine Access Center reported 2,077 confirmed measles cases nationwide as of May 29. Researchers warned that outbreaks reported across the country have raised concerns about continued transmission, additional hospitalizations and deaths, and the possible loss of the nation’s measles elimination status.

Public health experts have long viewed measles as a warning sign because of its ability to spread rapidly through communities with lower vaccination coverage. The New York Times reported that physicians increasingly fear the resurgence of measles may be followed by the return of other vaccine-preventable diseases.

Doctors say that is already happening.

Dr. Meghan Hofto, a pediatric hospitalist at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, said she has already treated roughly as many children with rotavirus this year as she saw during the previous decade. Rotavirus once caused tens of thousands of hospitalizations annually before vaccines sharply reduced its spread. None of the children she treated this year had been vaccinated.

Hofto also described caring for infants with pertussis, commonly known as whooping cough.

“It’s hard to know when they’re safe to go home,” Hofto told The Times.

The rise in whooping cough cases has been particularly striking. More than 28,000 cases were reported nationwide last year, compared with approximately 7,000 in 2023, according to figures cited by The Times. Many of the affected infants were too young to receive vaccinations themselves and relied on broader community protection to reduce their exposure.

Other doctors described similarly troubling cases.

Dr. Jessica Kirk, a pediatric hospitalist in Alabama, recently treated an unvaccinated toddler hospitalized with pneumonia caused by simultaneous infections of Haemophilus influenzae and Streptococcus pneumoniae. Vaccines exist to protect against both illnesses. The child required oxygen and antibiotics to recover.

Researchers at Johns Hopkins have been tracking vaccination trends nationwide and found continuing signs of vulnerability.

At the same time, vaccine policy has become increasingly contentious in state legislatures.

Johns Hopkins researchers reported that lawmakers across the country continue to introduce bills affecting childhood vaccination requirements, vaccine access and non-medical exemptions. Researchers also noted that state policies governing exemptions remain a significant factor in vaccination coverage and disease transmission risks.

Physicians have said vaccine skepticism has expanded beyond childhood immunizations. Doctors also reported growing resistance to other preventive treatments.

For doctors confronting the return of illnesses that vaccines once pushed to the margins of American medicine, the challenge is becoming increasingly personal.

“It just feels like you’re a tiny little boat with a giant tidal wave coming at you,” Dr. Erin Charles, a regional pediatric hospitalist at Seattle Children’s Hospital, told reporters. “And you might convince one family here and there.”

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Community

Asm. Isaac Bryan’s Environmental Reparations Bill Passes on Assembly Floor

“All this bill does is allocate resources from that repair fund and direct cash assistance to families that have had negative health impacts as a result of living next to that oil field,” said Bryan during remarks on the Assembly floor.

Published

2 weeks ago

June 17, 2026

bpusa-syndication

Asm. Isaac Bryan (D-Ladera Heights). File photo.

By Bo Tefu, California Black Media

On May 26, the California State Assembly passed legislation to provide direct financial assistance to families harmed by pollution from a major urban oil field in South Los Angeles.

Assembly Bill (AB) 1661, introduced by Assemblymember Isaac Bryan (D-Ladera Heights), cleared the Assembly floor with a 44-10 vote after lawmakers concluded debate on the measure.

The bill would direct money from a community repair fund toward families who suffered negative health effects from living near what Bryan described as the state’s largest toxic urban oil field. The repair fund was created under legislation approved two years ago that shut down the oil field and required polluters to contribute financially to community recovery efforts.

Bryan called the proposal “the largest environmental reparations opportunity for South LA” and told lawmakers the bill had not received opposition during the legislative process.

The legislation is part of California’s broader push to address environmental justice concerns in communities historically exposed to industrial pollution. South Los Angeles residents and environmental advocates have long raised concerns about health risks associated with oil drilling operations near homes, schools and parks.

Supporters say the measure represents a new approach to environmental accountability by ensuring that communities affected by pollution directly benefit from funds collected from responsible companies.

After debate concluded, Assembly leadership opened the roll call vote, and the measure passed with majority support from lawmakers.

AB 1661 now moves to the Senate for further review.

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Activism

Rep. Kamlager-Dove Introduces Bill to Protect Women in Custody After Reports Detailing Miscarriages and Neglect

The Pregnant Women in Custody Act would expand safeguards beyond the federal prison system to include women detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, U.S. Customs and Border Protection and the Office of Refugee Resettlement. The proposal follows reports of pregnant women being shackled, denied medical care and suffering miscarriages while in immigration detention.

Published

2 months ago

May 17, 2026

Oakland Post

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By Bo Tefu, California Black Media

Congresswoman Sydney Kamlager-Dove (D-CA-37) on May 7, reintroduced updated legislation aimed at strengthening protections and healthcare standards for pregnant and postpartum women held in federal custody, including in immigration detention facilities.

The Pregnant Women in Custody Act would expand safeguards beyond the federal prison system to include women detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, U.S. Customs and Border Protection and the Office of Refugee Resettlement. The proposal follows reports of pregnant women being shackled, denied medical care and suffering miscarriages while in immigration detention.

The legislation builds on a bipartisan version previously passed by the House during the 117th Congress. The updated bill includes new standards for healthcare access, mental health and substance use treatment, high-risk pregnancy care, family unity protections and increased federal oversight.

“Proper pregnancy care is a human right, regardless of your immigration or incarceration status,” Kamlager-Dove said in a statement. “It’s unacceptable that there are virtually no legal safeguards for pregnant women in federal custody.”

The bill would also limit the use of restraints and restrictive housing for pregnant women, improve data collection on maternal health in custody and require additional staff training and enforcement measures.

Supporters of the measure said the legislation is intended to address long-standing concerns about maternal healthcare and safety in detention settings, particularly for Black women and low-income women who are disproportionately impacted by incarceration and health disparities.

“Pregnant women in custody should never be subjected to dangerous and inhumane treatment that threatens their health, dignity, or the well-being of their babies,” said Patrice Willoughby, chief of policy and legislative affairs for the NAACP and a longtime public policy and government affairs strategist, in a statement.

A 2021 report estimated there are about 58,000 admissions of pregnant women into U.S. jails and prisons each year. Kamlager’s statement also cited a recent investigation by NBC News and Bloomberg Law that identified allegations of severe mistreatment or medical neglect involving at least 54 pregnant women or families in county jails between 2017 and 2024.

Federal policy under the Department of Homeland Security restricts the detention of pregnant, postpartum and nursing immigrants except in extreme cases. However, the agency reported that ICE deported 363 pregnant, postpartum or nursing women between January 2025 and February 2026, including 16 recorded miscarriages during that period.

The bill is cosponsored by several House Democrats and backed by organizations including the NAACP and the Vera Institute of Justice.