Study: Alzheimer’s Kills as Many People as Cancer, Heart Disease
A new look, based on updated study.
A new look, based on updated study.
Lead study author Bryan James of Rush University Medical Center in Chicago and his colleagues studied 2,566 people over the age of 65, with an average age of 78. Within eight years of the study, 1,090 participants had died and a total of 559 of them had developed Alzheimer’s disease.
On average, the participants lived for about four years after an Alzheimer's diagnosis. Autopsies confirmed the presence of Alzheimer’s in 90 percent of those diagnosed.
More than one third of the deaths in the study group were attributable to Alzheimer’s. People ages 75 to 84 were four times more likely to die after being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, and three times more likely after the age of 85.
Researchers say expanding these findings to current death estimates from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) means that Alzheimer’s was responsible for 503,400 deaths 2010.
Attempting to identify a single cause of death in the elderly is difficult and doesn’t adequately capture the reality of the process of death, James said.