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Risk factors
Age: Your risk of developing Alzheimer's disease increases as you grow older. At 65 years, 1 percent of the population is affected; at age 85, 30 percent to 50 percent has the disease. While it has been suggested that everyone might develop dementia after living long enough, it should be emphasized that Alzheimer's is a disease and not simply an exaggeration of normal aging.
Family history: If you have relatives who have Alzheimer's, you are more likely to develop the disease, although a clear, inherited pattern of Alzheimer's disease exists for fewer than 1 percent of all cases. Alzheimer's disease strikes early and fairly often in certain families, often enough to be singled out as a separate form of the disease and given a label: early-onset familial Alzheimer's disease, or FAD.
Sex: Alzheimer's disease is more prevalent among women than among men.
Head injury: Some studies have shown an association between Alzheimer's disease and a history of significant head injury.
Education: Some studies have shown that low education levels are related to an increased risk for Alzheimer's disease, although why this might be the case is not clearly understood.
Down syndrome: People with Down syndrome often develop Alzheimer's disease in their 40s and 50s.
One of the most publicized and controversial theories concerns aluminum, which became a suspect in Alzheimer's disease when researchers found traces of this metal in the brains of patients with Alzheimer's disease. Many studies since then have either not been able to confirm this finding or have had questionable results. Aluminum does turn up in higher amounts than normal in some autopsy studies of Alzheimer's patients but not in all. Various studies have found that groups of people exposed to high levels of aluminum do not have an increased risk. On the whole, scientists can say only that it seems unlikely that exposure to aluminum plays a role in Alzheimer's disease.
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