Press Release | Zurich, Switzerland | 14 April, 2025 

The Women’s Brain Foundation (WBF), an international organization dedicated to researching sex and gender differences in brain and mental diseases, announces groundbreaking research that underscores the significant impact of sex and gender on the pathogenesis, progression, diagnosis, and treatment of Alzheimer’s disease (AD). This new work, a worldwide collaboration from researchers with diverse backgrounds, spells out what the WBF has been urging for years: if drug developers, regulators and researchers do not consider sex and gender differences in preclinical and clinical development, then the profound implications these differences have for biomarker interpretation, improved clinical outcomes, and patient management will be lost. It is vital to remember that every three seconds, someone in the world develops dementia, with women being at the highest risk.    

Evidence of sex differences is observed in imaging studies, postmortem analyses, and behavioral research of individuals at different stages of AD. In imaging studies, for instance, women display higher neurofibrillary tangle densities than men, with a potential increase in synaptic loss in specific brain regions, including the entorhinal area and hippocampus. Women with AD are more depressed and have psychotic symptoms, while men are more apathetic. “The presence of depression and anxiety might be misattributed to psychiatric causes rather than AD, and severe neuropsychiatric symptoms are usually an exclusion criterion for clinical trials,” the authors write.  

The article, “Alzheimer’s Disease Seen Through the Lens of Sex and Gender” [https://www.nature.com/articles/s41582-025-01071-0] published in Nature Reviews Neurology, highlights the urgent need for precision medicine approaches that integrate these differences. Dr. Antonella Santuccione Chadha, founder of WBF and senior author of the study, states: 

“AD is a debilitating neurodegenerative condition that disproportionately affects women. To develop effective and safe solutions for both women and men, we must enhance our understanding of both biological and societal influences and ensure that clinical trials appropriately account for these factors” 

But researchers, she says, have treated AD as a one-size-fits-all disease, ignoring critical sex and gender differences, leading to misdiagnosis, delayed treatment and suboptimal care.  

The present study provides the following key insights: 

• Research on sex and gender differences in AD highlights their crucial influence on disease prevention, manifestations and progression. Yet, further investigation for instance is required to elucidate the role of menopausal hormone therapy (MHT) in AD prevention and to examine its interactions with hormonal, genetic, lifestyle, and metabolic risk factors.  
• Sex-specific variations in drug efficacy underscore the need for tailored therapies for both men and women. However, women have been disproportionately excluded from AD immunotherapy trials due to factors such as older age, lower education levels, and comorbidities. 
• Digital technologies for longitudinal monitoring suggest sex-related variations in early AD detection, requiring further exploration. 
• Multimodal prevention trials highlight gender-related differences, emphasizing the need for personalized intervention strategies. However, there is still a significant gap in knowledge with this type of intervention. For instance, whether women with hormone-related risk factors for AD—such as early menopause, pregnancy complications, or delayed initiation of MHT—respond differently to lifestyle interventions compared to those without these risk factors, remains unknown. 

The authors also state that addressing biases in clinical trials and neuropsychological assessments is essential to improving the accuracy and effectiveness of AD interventions.  

Furthermore, with fewer than 3% of AD studies including participants under the age of 50, there is a critical need to investigate lifestyle-related risk factors from early adulthood. 

“While few organizations around the world want to diminish the value of sex- and gender-based medicine—removing the need for diverse and inclusive science—the WBF remains steadfast in generating the evidence proving why this approach is fundamental. The data speaks for itself, and ignoring it is not just a scientific failure; it is negligence.” – says Dr. Santuccione Chadha. 

Learn more about the Women’s Brain Foundation’s work: https://www.womensbrainproject.com/  

For further inquiries or to arrange an interview with the researchers, please contact: 
info@womensbrainproject.com