New Lifetime Risk Estimates Suggest 1 in 8 Baby Boomers Will Develop Alzheimer's Disease

A new report released by the Alzheimer's Association includes new estimates that show the lifetime risk for Alzheimer's disease (AD) is 17% in women and 9% in men who live to age 55 years. The figures mean that 10 million of the 78 million baby boomers alive today can expect to develop AD in their lifetime; this number increases to 14 million if other dementias are included.

The new numbers outlining remaining lifetime risk at age 55 years were provided to the Alzheimer's Association by authors of the Framingham Heart Study, and the data appear in the association's report, 2008 Alzheimer's Disease Facts and Figures, released this week.

Alzheimer's Association president and CEO Harry Johns said in a statement that the information in this report "makes it clear that the crisis cannot be ignored, not when 10 million baby boomers are at risk of developing this fatal disease. Unchecked, this disease will impose staggering consequences on families, the economy, and the nation's health and long-term care infrastructure."

The report includes information ranging from prevalence, to mortality, to costs for direct care, to indirect costs to caregivers. The document also includes a special report on remaining lifetime risk, based on data from the Framingham Heart Study, authored by Alexa Beiser, PhD, Sudha Seshadri, MD, Rhoda Au, PhD, and Philip A. Wolf, MD, from Boston University Schools of Medicine and Public Health, in Massachusetts.

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