Study: Dementia cases expected to rise to 1 million per year by 2060

Key takeaways:

• Data show the lifetime risk for developing dementia after age 55 years is 42% in the U.S.
• The lifetime risk was higher — between 45% and 60% — among women, Black adults and APOE4 carriers.

Cases of dementia in the United States are expected to rise to 1 million per year by 2060, with Black individuals, women and those older than 75 years expected to be most affected, according to new data published in Nature Medicine.

“The U.S. has experienced substantial population aging over the past century, resulting in a rise in late life diseases,” senior study investigator Josef Coresh, MD, PhD, founding director of the Optimal Aging Institute and professor of population health and medicine at NYU Grossman School of Medicine, and colleagues wrote. “Dementia, once an uncommon condition, now affects more than 6 million Americans.”

As dementia is the leading cause of disability in older adults in the United States, understanding the lifetime risk can provide a better framework for public health planning and improve patient engagement in prevention, particularly in underrepresented populations.

Josef Coresh

Coresh and colleagues sought to accurately predict estimates of lifetime dementia risk for both the overall U.S. population and across a range of subgroups over the next four decades.

They culled 1987-2020 data from the ongoing Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities Neurocognitive Study, a community-based, longitudinal, prospective cohort study that is tracking vascular health and cognitive function of approximately 16,000 adults as they age. Their analysis included 15,043 individuals (55.1% women; 26.9% Black) who were free of dementia at age 55 years and were followed over a median of 23 years.

The researchers estimated the lifetime risk for dementia for each patient from age 55 to 95 years, with mortality treated as a competing event, while additionally applying lifetime risk estimates to U.S. Census projections to approximate the annual number of incident dementia cases from 2020 to 2060.

According to the results, the estimated number of new dementia cases per year was predicted to nearly double from roughly 514,000 in 2020 to as many as 1 million by 2060.

The lifetime risk for dementia at age 55 years was 42%. While the cumulative incidence of dementia was low from age 55 to 75 years, data show that the incidence increased significantly with age, with higher risks for women, Black individuals and those who are carriers of APOE4 allele, according to the researchers.

Specifically, Coresh and colleagues found the lifetime risk for dementia was:

• 44% in Black individuals vs. 41% in white individuals, with the difference emerging around age 75 years;
• 48% in women vs. 35% in men — which is higher than current estimates from the Framingham Heart Study (23% vs. 14%) and the Rotterdam Study (31% vs. 19%) — with the difference emerging around age 85 years; and
• 59% in individuals with two APOE4 allele copies vs. 48% in those with one copy and 39% in noncarriers, with the difference emerging around age 70 years.

“Major health organizations, including the American Heart Association and Alzheimer’s Association, will use our results to raise awareness in the general population, enhance patient engagement in prevention, and inform policy making,” Coresh told Healio in an email. “Understanding that lifetime risk is high but rises to 20% by age 85 years and then to the full 42% by age 95 years provide a useful quantitative perspective for patients, providers and policy makers.”

Reference:

• United States dementia cases estimated to double by 2060. https://nyulangone.org/news/united-states-dementia-cases-estimated-double-2060. Published Jan. 13, 2025. Accessed Jan. 13, 2025.