Detecting why most with Alzheimer's women

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RICHMOND, Va., Sept. 5 (UPI) -- A group of researchers say they have developed research recommendations to determine why nearly two-thirds of U.S. adults with Alzheimer's disease are women.

The recommendations, published in a Roundtable discussion in Journal of Women's Health, were created by an interdisciplinary roundtable of experts convened by the Society for Women's Health Research in Washington to guide future Alzheimer's disease research.

Dr. Susan G. Kornstein, editor in chief of Journal of Women's Health and executive director of the Virginia Commonwealth University Institute for Women's Health in Richmond, Va., said the recommendations make the evaluation of sex and gender differences a component of future studies.

"There are still major gaps in our knowledge of the role of sex and gender in the onset and progression of Alzheimer's disease, and these recommendations will provide a useful guide for future research in this area," Kornstein said in a statement.

The consensus recommendations involve seven themes including: The need to assess the link between sex and Alzheimer's disease incidence, raise awareness of sex differences among the research community and to take into account sex-based differences in the experimental design and data analysis of studies on disease risk, early diagnosis and drug discovery.