HEALTH ALERT:Women at greater risk of stroke, dementia, Parkinson’s

Reports say,  Nearly half of women and one in three men are at risk of developing stroke or degenerative neurological diseases such as dementia and Parkinson’s during their lifetime.

Senior author of the Dutch researchers, Arfan Ikram revealed in the study published yesterday, they considered all three conditions “in order to grasp how big the problem of incurable brain diseases in late life really is”

According to Arfan Ikram, this could mean there are also overlapping ways to delay or avoid getting the diseases, and the research found that some preventative strategies may cut the risk by between 20 and 50 percent.

For the study, published in the Journal of Neurology Neurosurgery and Psychiatry, researchers tracked more than 12,000 healthy people over the age of 45 from 1990 to 2016.

Over the 26 years, 5,291 people died. Nearly 1,500 were diagnosed with dementia — 80 percent with Alzheimer’s — while 1,285 had a stroke and 263 developed Parkinson’s.

The results indicated that the likelihood of women aged 45 years or older getting the diseases was 48 percent, while it was 36 percent for men.

Because they live longer, women have an increased risk of such diseases, and the study found women were twice as likely as men to develop both dementia and stroke.

While there are no cures for these diseases, a healthy lifestyle — a good diet, not smoking or having diabetes can protect against stroke and help prevent the onset of dementia

Worldwide, about seven percent of people over 65 suffer from Alzheimer’s or some form of dementia, a percentage that rises to 40 percent above the age of 85.

The number afflicted is expected to triple by 2050 to 152 million, according to the World Health Organization, posing a huge challenge to healthcare systems.