A research group at the University of Tokyo tracked the cognitive function of 234 patients with mild cognitive impairment for up to 3 years through the J-ADNI study, which tracks and examines the process of cognitive decline.Among them, it was found that gender and educational history have an influence as factors involved in the decline of cognitive function.
According to the study results, of the 234 patients diagnosed with mild cognitive impairment, females worsened earlier than males in all endpoints. When calculating the rate of reaching dementia level from mild cognitive impairment within 3 years, 44% of men and 60% of women showed that women had a higher rate of transition to dementia.
Next, in the comparison by the number of years of education, it was found that the progress of all the evaluation items was slow for those who received education for 16 years or more (university graduation or more).Further analysis by gender revealed that this effect was not observed in females, but only in males.
Further investigation into the cause of the rapid progression of cognitive decline in females revealed that the higher the grade of chronic kidney disease, the faster the progression.It was speculated that the reason for this is that hypertension and arteriosclerosis, which are the causes of renal dysfunction, may cause damage to small blood vessels in the brain, which may accelerate the deterioration of cognitive function.
On the other hand, similar studies in North America do not show this tendency.The prospect that improvement of lifestyle-related diseases such as hypertension, diabetes, and dyslipidemia is important for suppressing the transition from mild cognitive impairment to dementia, which was revealed this time, is peculiar to Japanese people, especially to women. Is considered to be.
