Pregnancy History May Be Tied to Alzheimer's Disease

A study published in Neurology suggests a link may exist between a woman's history of pregnancy and her risk of Alzheimer's disease decades later, reports Medical Xpress . The researchers determined women who carry five or more children may be more likely to develop Alzheimer's than those with fewer births. Furthermore, women who have had an incomplete pregnancy are less likely to develop Alzheimer's in the future than those who have not. The team blended data from two independent population-based studies from Korea and Greece, with a total of 3,549 women. A total of 118 women developed Alzheimer's and 896 women developed mild cognitive impairment. Subjects who had given birth to five or more children were 70 percent more likely to develop Alzheimer's than those who had fewer children. Of the 716 women with five or more children, 59 developed Alzheimer's versus 53 of the 2,751 women with fewer children. The results remained consistent after adjusting for other factors such as other medical conditions, use of hormone replacement therapy, and breastfeeding. Women who had an incomplete pregnancy were about half as likely to develop Alzheimer's as those who never had an incomplete pregnancy. Forty-seven of the 2,375 women who had an incomplete pregnancy developed Alzheimer's versus 71 of the 1,174 women who never had an incomplete pregnancy. On memory and thinking skills tests, women who had fewer than five children and incomplete pregnancies had higher scores than women who had five or more children or no incomplete pregnancies.