What do you think caused it?

I personally believe it's some toxin we're exposed to in our environment (and I do not believe that all the research geared toward amyloid plaques will produce a cure). My mother did not take statins or anything like gabapentin, developed dementia in her late 50s with no genetic/family history. In that journey, I believe she always had something underlying but anesthesia triggered the disease to become active/more prominent. She had a minor vein-stripping procedure that seemed to trigger it, and then a series of 2 separate minor cataract removals followed by a colonoscopy, all in a 3-month period, and after the colonoscopy she was no longer able to work and cognitively fell off a cliff.

I have taken statins for years, have lived beyond when she developed her symptoms and in fact am the age she was when she was severely impaired, and I am functioning well at work and in life.

Without discounting any of the previous thoughts and suggestions, I'll just add another one: the gut biome. There is more and more evidence about how critical the gut biome is to the entire body and the different systems. Almost all of us alive today have been eating all those toxins, chemicals and empty foods since we were toddlers.

I suspect that the increase in dementia among the senior population is due to advances in medicine. Sure, if statins didn't come along, dementia would probably be less prevalent but only because folks would have died at a younger age due to heart disease. Hope I'm wrong and the researchers discover a substance/ food/ chemical that causes this terrible disease and we can all benefit from a cure.

I like what HB said about genes load the gun, while environment or behaviors pull the trigger. I think that is the case for my DH. His mother, her mother, and his maternal aunts all had Alzheimer's. DH was an active alcoholic for many years and also a smoker. He never watched what he ate and always preferred sweets. He liked to stay up late even when he wanted to get up early.

The greatest risk factor for dementia is age. The individual risk of developing dementia has been declining for decades. The increased prevalence of the disease is due to aging of our population. People who are aging today have a lower risk of dementia than people of the same age a couple of decades back.

My DH had a full scholarship for football to Division 1 college and was a linebacker and co-captain back in late 60s, early 70s. He physically has a big head and hard to find hats to fit him. When he was diagnosed with AD several years ago, his sister told me she wasn’t surprised because when he was in college his helmet didn’t fit him, so they took the padding out so it would!!!! And of course he had at least a couple concussion during his football years.

Agree with the genetics and traumatic trigger also, as my DH’s mom had dementia later in life and died at 92, but my DH has had AD for 11 years now and showed up in his mid 60s. So think football was his trigger.

Moms cpap broke about 12 years before she was diagnosed. She insisted it could be fixed vs replaced, but never actually tried to make that happen and just went without. I think going all that time without it may have been part of the cause. She has vascular dementia. Mom has also taken a ridiculous number of medications for many years. These medications include gabapetian and statins. I also think the lack of a healthy diet and no exercise couldn’t help.

Everyone I know who has been diagnosed has or had sleep apnea. Interesting!

I've been saying the devil caused it because dementia ,(PCA) in my wife's case, is absolutely evil! It sucks! It sucks! It sucks!!!

I’m sure an unhealthy lifestyle, lack of sleep, diabetes, high cholesterol are bad for you. However I continue to believe that the increase in life expectancy caused by medical advances is the major reason for dementia. Humans were designed to live for only so long -after that our bodies and our brains wear out and break down. So just as medical issues plague us in old age, so does dementia. People just used to die from other things before that happened and now they don’t.
I know those of you looking at early onset probably have trouble with that. However even now people die of natural causes at a relatively young age, meaning their bodies just quit. So some bodies just aren’t meant to live to the same age as others.

Very interesting. My mother developed dementia in her late 80's and she had untreated borderline diabetes. My DH developed dementia after being diagnosed with prediabetes at age 64.

This is a question my sister and I discussed endlessly after she was diagnosed with early-onset. She would even ask about it well into stage 6. Early on she requested a genetic test, which was done, and nothing showed up.

Her lifestyle wasn't particularly unhealthy. Probably the worst thing I can say is that she was allergic to exercise. Otherwise, she ate healthy things, didn't smoke, and didn't drink a lot. Her vitals were always good too - normal cholesterol, no diabetes (no pre-diabetes either), blood pressure normal, etc. She was never on any medications of any kind until after her diagnosis.

We finally hit on pesticides and possibly benzene. She managed most of the parks in the city where she lived, and would walk the grounds of various parks every day. There were a lot of pesticides.

In her twenties she lived in an agricultural area where they sprayed the strawberry fields with benzene. They haven't done this for a couple of decades now, but they did when she lived there.

Did the pesticides and chemicals cause it? I wish I knew, but I don't think I ever will.

This is one interesting idea. The fact that the definition of "normal" cholesterol has been lowered, and the guidelines for primary prevention of cardiovascular disease have also been made more stringent, means that almost every senior citizen in the land is considered a candidate for statin treatment. My own healthcare organization keeps trying to shove statins down my throat, despite the fact that my primary care doc (who works for said org) has said that I don't need them. There is a vocal group of "statin skeptics" - independent MDs and scientists who challenge the cholesterol hypothesis. I'm not a medical professional, not here to give medication advice. But these alternative viewpoints are easy to find online. If you're a nerd like me, read all about it and make your own conclusions. Here's one skeptic's take on statins and Alzheimers. https://www.ravnskov.nu/2012/10/01/october-2012/