A team of researchers from the University of Montpellier and La Colombière Hospital has pointed out the factors that raise the risk of developing dementia, which have been proved to depend on gender. The results of the study were published online in the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry.

The investigation involved 6892 participants who had an average age of 74 years and hadn’t suffered dementia, having mild cognitive disorders though, as Guardian.co.uk reports. The study began with some sort of an interview on the subject and was followed up every two years.

Men with a variation in the ApoE gene are more than three-fold likely to develop dementia, while with regard to women, this variation leads to a risk which is only two times higher. Other fundamental causes which determine the apparition of dementia in men are overweight, diabetes and stroke.

When it comes to women, they are disposed to develop this affection mainly because of depression and taking anticholinergic drugs. Of less effect, but not insignificant, are a poor general health and insomnia, as the Washington Post informs.

The scientists have established not only differences between sexes as regards developing dementia, but also similarities: a low level of education and growing old.

“These differences between the sexes were not due to varying prevalence of these conditions in men and women. These findings support the notion that mild cognitive impairment is a common end point to multiple etiological pathways, which are not the same for men and women”, the researches asserted.