--- title: Women Are More Affected by Alzheimer's Disease Than Men Are description: The latest research from the Alzheimer's Association shows a woman's lifetime risk of developing the neurodegenerative disease is one in six, compared with one in 11 for men. More than 5 million Americans suffer from the disorder canonical: https://time.com/29680/women-at-higher-risk-of-developing-alzheimers-disease-than-men/ author: Alice Park article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-03-19T04:01:12.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:45:29.440Z article:section: Health og:title: Women bear heavier burden of Alzheimer's disease than men og:description: The latest research from the Alzheimer's Association shows a woman's lifetime risk of developing the neurodegenerative disease is one in six, compared with one in 11 for men. More than 5 million Americans suffer from the disorder og:url: https://time.com/29680/women-at-higher-risk-of-developing-alzheimers-disease-than-men/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Women bear heavier burden of Alzheimer's disease than men twitter:description: The latest research from the Alzheimer's Association shows a woman's lifetime risk of developing the neurodegenerative disease is one in six, compared with one in 11 for men. More than 5 million Americans suffer from the disorder twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Women at Higher Risk of Developing Alzheimer’s Disease Than Men > Sponsored content. 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Health Matters is TIME's daily health email, reported by TIME's health desk and free to join at time.com/newsletters. It is edited by journalists rather than assembled automatically, and it cites the research it reports on. #### Is Health Matters free? Yes. Health Matters is a free daily newsletter from TIME, available at time.com/newsletters. #### Who reads TIME's Health Matters newsletter? Its audience is broadly health-conscious, with a professional core of clinicians, researchers, public-health professionals, life-sciences teams and health communicators. ## Video: Ground Breaking Women Alzheimer's Study [Watch (HLS stream): Ground Breaking Women Alzheimer's Study](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/7CumxY4I.m3u8) (1:54)  _Published 2014-03-19. A new Alzheimer's Association study finds that women far more susceptable to the disease than men._  by [Alice Park](https://time.com/author/alice-park/)  ## Alice Park Senior Correspondent Mar 19, 2014 4:01 AM UTC  by [Alice Park](https://time.com/author/alice-park/)  ## Alice Park Senior Correspondent Mar 19, 2014 4:01 AM UTC Alzheimer’s disease may hit women harder than men in the coming decades, according to the [latest report](http://www.alz.org/) from the Alzheimer’s Association. The organization’s figures show a woman’s lifetime risk of developing the condition is 1 in 6, compared with 1 in 11 for men. More than 5 million Americans in total are now living with the [neurodegenerative disease](http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2025572,00.html), per the report. Women are also shouldering the responsibility for caring for parents affected by Alzheimer’s. More than twice as many women as men provide 24-hour care for a loved one with the disease, and twice as many women as men gave up working full time in order to do so. (**MORE:** [New Research on Understanding Alzheimer’s](http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2025572,00.html)) Such unpaid care totals about $220 billion in lost wages and other care. Much of that cost is for helping patients to bathe, eat, dress and use the bathroom, rather than for treating the symptoms of dementia and memory loss, for which there are no effective therapies. “We have to change that balance,” says Maria Carrillo, vice president for medical-and-scientific relations at the Alzheimer’s Association. Here are some of the highlights from the group’s report: * By 2050, 16 million people will be living with Alzheimer’s disease. * African Americans are twice as likely as whites to develop Alzheimer’s. * About one-third of seniors who die each year in the U.S. have been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s or dementia. * Women in their 60s are twice as likely to develop Alzheimer’s as they are to develop breast cancer over their lifetime. * In 2013, Americans, mostly women, provided 17.7 billion hours of unpaid care to patients with Alzheimer’s. * In 2014, Americans will spend $214 billion to care for patients with Alzheimer’s. In 2050, that amount will reach $1.2 trillion. 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