Dementia, a neuro-cognitive disorder affecting majorly older people aged 40 years & above, is the 7th leading cause of death across the world is expected to increase massively, according to a Global Burden of Disease study published in The Lancet Public Health. The study estimated the number of increases for almost 200 countries worldwide.
GBD Report Claims That Dementia Cases To Triple By 2050
The researchers even ruled out several major causes of dementia which are obesity, smoking, diabetes, depression, alcohol intake, social isolation, high BP, and illiteracy. If these factors are eliminated, 40 percent of cases can be delayed or prevented.
Out of all these factors, illiteracy is the one that can be worked upon by the government. According to the estimated results, improving the education sector can bring down the cases by approximately 6 million until 2050. Still, the other factors are more of personal choices, and if we take the present scenarios, the dementia cases are expected to triple by 2050.
Emma Nichols from the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation, the author of the study published, stated that their study gives new insights and solutions to the government, who can work on this one by one with the help of leading health experts based on the estimated available stats.
The government should prioritize prevention & control of the causes of dementia and invest more in the research field, which might help bring down the estimated numbers of 150 million in 2050. For this, different countries need to invest more in awareness programs whose main focus is on healthy lifestyle, quitting smoking, education sector, etc.
Dementia cases are expected to increase largely in Eastern Sub-Saharan Africa, North Africa, and the Middle East by almost 357 to 367 percent by 2050. The quarter is expected to show the largest increase of 1926 percent, followed by the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Oman. Other countries like Western Europe and the United Kingdom are also expected to increase 74 percent and 75 percent, respectively.
The Asia Pacific is expected to show the smallest increase in dementia cases by 53 percent, specifically Japan showing a mere increase of 27 percent. Countries with a small rise include Greece, Bulgaria, Serbia, Finland, Ukraine, and Italy. It shows that countries like Japan with improved education and lifestyles have fewer cases compared to other parts of the world.
These estimations of different countries show that low & middle-income countries will be more affected compared to high-income countries. Such countries need to implement new policies regarding the causes of dementia, prioritizing the education sector and bringing awareness towards healthy habits & lifestyles. Older people need to be looked after and given better care with increased medical assistance.
The co-author of the study, Dr. Jaimie Steinmetz, also found out that due to biological differences in men and women, women were more affected by dementia than men. Even in the records from 2019 of dementia cases, women outnumbered men by 31 cases in every 100 recorded cases. The cause may lie in the pathway that the disease follows, which affects the brains of men and women differently.
Although the study is of great importance and gives an estimation of rising in cases of a lot of countries which might help the public health sector in many ways but the authors also accepted that they did not work on all the 12 factors listed in the research papers of 2020 report rather they ruled out the four major ones and gave their estimated results specifically following the major factors. They also admit that their report is limited and lacks high-quality statistics from several countries.
