Study: More 'Senior Moments' for Men Than Women

(Sept. 7) -- A new study reveals that men are more likely than women to experience mild cognitive impairment in old age -- those so-called "senior moments."

A study of 2,050 people in their 70s and 80s living in Olmsted County, Minn., found that men were 1.5 times more likely than women to be forgetful. Some 19 percent of men in the study had mild cognitive impairment, compared to 14 percent of the women.

Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) is considered a level of mental impairment beyond what's normally expected with aging, and can lead to dementia or Alzheimer's disease later in life. MCI falls somewhere between normal forgetfulness and dementia, according to the National Institutes of Health.

The research was done by neurologists at Minnesota's Mayo Clinic and appears today in the journal Neurology. It was announced in a news release issued by the American Academy of Neurology, excerpted by several news agencies.

"This is the first study conducted among community-dwelling persons to find a higher prevalence of MCI in men," the news release quoted Ronald Petersen, director of the Mayo Clinic Alzheimer's Disease Research Center, as saying. "If these results are confirmed in other studies, it may suggest that factors related to gender play a role in the disease. For example, men may experience cognitive decline earlier in life but more gradually, whereas women may transition from normal memory directly to dementia at a later age but more quickly."

The study also found that MCI is also more common among people with a low level of education, or those who've never been married.

"The gender differences were somewhat surprising to us because most people believe that women are at higher risk than men," Petersen told Reuters. "It warrants further study," he also told The Independent of London.

About 15 percent of people who suffer MCI develop full-blown dementia, compared to 2 percent of the general population, he said.

Reacting to news of the study, the head of research for the Alzheimer's Society, Susanne Sorensen, issued a statement calling it "exciting new research" that could help "unravel the many mysteries still surrounding Alzheimer's disease and move us closer to treatments and a cure."