Sitting in my support group for Lewy Body Dementia I was a little curious as to why everyone but two of us was discussing men with LBD. It just seemed a bit odd. I asked my question and Lo! Behold! everyone there looked at me as though I was a tad off my rocker! "Lewy Body Dementia affects men more than it does women," stated one woman rather flatly. "Didn't you know that?!" Nope. I didn't. No one had told me, and I found nothing much in the literature that would suggest such a fact. So, I began digging. And more digging. And even more digging.
I spent a great deal of time Googling the topic, changing search words, looking for anything that would lead me to any statement of fact that supported this notion. Aside from finding a study that stated that there were approximately 2.9 men for every woman diagnosed, there was not much else.
There was the search for Risk Factors for males. Nada. Zilch. Rien. Nothing.
I tried Bing and still the same sites came up. I went pages and pages and pages into each search but found myself empty-handed. Then I typed in "Research" and I found something useful. It was a large autopsy study to investigate male gender and Cortical Lewy Body association.
What isare Cortical Lewy Body Dementia?
Cortical Lewy bodies are a distinguishing feature of dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB), but may occasionally be seen in ballooned neurons characteristic of Pick's disease and corticobasal degeneration,[1] as well as in patients with other tauopathies.[2] They are also seen in cases of multiple system atrophy, particularly the Parkinsonian variant.[3]
In plain English, this means they are more centralized at the base of the brain with symptoms that are similar to Pick's disease, which is a frontal temporal lobe degeneration (associated with the tau proteins more commonly associated with Alzheimer's) and the basal cerebral cortex. This type begins with language degeneration and works into movement, as well.
It may not cover everyone diagnosed with Lewy Body Dementia, but it's a start.
The study abstract was published November 2010 by the Journal of Neurology, and I found it as published by the US National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health.
To be brief, there was nothing that linked gender to the susceptibility of males more than females with Lewy Body, and to underscore this, more women are diagnosed with Alzheimer's than men (but we don't want to be cheeky and state each sex has their own flag on a different type of dementia, now, do we?")
After embarking on looking for variables and links that could answer the question about why men have LBD and women have Alzheimer's (yes, I do know these are not absolutes, so don't even try!) they were left with environmental factors. Huh. Now, doesn't that answer the churning questions in our bellies?!
So, I'll keep digging to see if there is anything more recent, even if I've the need to speak with a neurologist or two, if only to find if anything more recent has uncovered more answers. But, until then, just keep living healthy as though there is no tomorrow.
For more, please visit: Gender Differences in Dementia, 06/30/2015.
I spent a great deal of time Googling the topic, changing search words, looking for anything that would lead me to any statement of fact that supported this notion. Aside from finding a study that stated that there were approximately 2.9 men for every woman diagnosed, there was not much else.
There was the search for Risk Factors for males. Nada. Zilch. Rien. Nothing.
I tried Bing and still the same sites came up. I went pages and pages and pages into each search but found myself empty-handed. Then I typed in "Research" and I found something useful. It was a large autopsy study to investigate male gender and Cortical Lewy Body association.
What isare Cortical Lewy Body Dementia?
Cortical Lewy bodies are a distinguishing feature of dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB), but may occasionally be seen in ballooned neurons characteristic of Pick's disease and corticobasal degeneration,[1] as well as in patients with other tauopathies.[2] They are also seen in cases of multiple system atrophy, particularly the Parkinsonian variant.[3]
In plain English, this means they are more centralized at the base of the brain with symptoms that are similar to Pick's disease, which is a frontal temporal lobe degeneration (associated with the tau proteins more commonly associated with Alzheimer's) and the basal cerebral cortex. This type begins with language degeneration and works into movement, as well.
It may not cover everyone diagnosed with Lewy Body Dementia, but it's a start.
The study abstract was published November 2010 by the Journal of Neurology, and I found it as published by the US National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health.
To be brief, there was nothing that linked gender to the susceptibility of males more than females with Lewy Body, and to underscore this, more women are diagnosed with Alzheimer's than men (but we don't want to be cheeky and state each sex has their own flag on a different type of dementia, now, do we?")
After embarking on looking for variables and links that could answer the question about why men have LBD and women have Alzheimer's (yes, I do know these are not absolutes, so don't even try!) they were left with environmental factors. Huh. Now, doesn't that answer the churning questions in our bellies?!
So, I'll keep digging to see if there is anything more recent, even if I've the need to speak with a neurologist or two, if only to find if anything more recent has uncovered more answers. But, until then, just keep living healthy as though there is no tomorrow.
For more, please visit: Gender Differences in Dementia, 06/30/2015.
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