Do women get Alzheimer’s more than men?

For a long time, we knew that women develop Alzheimer’s more frequently than men do, but we attributed it to our increased longevity. We now realize that even when you exclude that, women are two to three times more likely to develop Alzheimer’s than men. The other burden that women carry is that women are more likely to be the caregiver of patients with Alzheimer’s. In many ways, this is a woman’s disease. For too long, we haven’t focused on that, so I’ve been very interested in trying to figure out what makes women more susceptible to Alzheimer’s. While we don’t know the answer to that, I think it’s really important to understand that women have more risk factors than men do for Alzheimer’s. There are a number of what we call modifiable lifestyle risk factors. These are things that we have control over and for women, this is especially important.