Settings

Theme

Incidence of Dementia Over Three Decades in the Framingham Heart Study (2016)

nejm.org

27 points by surlyadopter · 11 comments

Reader

3 threads
cm2187

This article points in the opposite direction but it’s worth keeping in mind that we will see other age related diseases on the rise, just because we get better are curing other diseases. We will all die of something and if we get better at treating cancer, then some other disease will mechanically increase. That’s why I would also take with a pinch of salt studies that show a modest increase in a particular disease and try to pin that on a particular technology or food.

  • Angostura
  • m-i-l

    If I've read it correctly the article is saying the percentage of instances per age group have decreased over time, but to your point if there are more people reaching those age groups the total number of cases may increase.

  • dilap

    life expectancy in the us is droppping

    • ztjio

      This is due to suicide and drug overdose, nothing that would be relevant to this discussion directly.

      • yayana

        Suicide could account for a lower prevalence of dementia.

        • Nasrudith

          If it is biased to those who are suffering already or would suffer from it.

          Theoretically if depression earlier in life protected against dementia (not likely at all but bear with me) it would actually raise the rates.

          I wonder what the actual correlation is however even keeping in mind spuriousness.

mrfusion

Could this be related to phasing out lead in gasoline in the 80s?

Interestingly each epoch they look at would have had less exposure than the previous and dementia is going down in each epoch.

everybodyknows

Title edit: 2016

Keyboard Shortcuts

j
Next item
k
Previous item
o / Enter
Open selected item
?
Show this help
Esc
Close modal / clear selection