London - Dementia is the leading killer of women – claiming almost 32 000 lives a year.
Official figures show that three times as many deaths are caused by dementia as breast cancer, while it is the third biggest killer of men.
Dementia is classed as a terminal condition as it cuts sufferers’ ability to fight infections and illnesses, putting patients at risk of complications such as pneumonia.
Experts believe rising numbers may partly be due to increasing awareness of the disease, with more doctors confident in recording it on death certificates. The UK government’s drive to improve rates of diagnosis and tackle the stigma surrounding dementia may also have boosted the figures.
Coronary heart disease remains the leading cause of death in men – accounting for one in six deaths.
Almost 38 000 men died from acute heart conditions including heart attacks last year, while 31 850 women died from dementia.
Cancer is the leading killer of men and women when all subtypes of the disease are combined, accounting for three in ten deaths, according to the data from the Office for National Statistics.
Overall, the ONS data showed, there were 506 790 deaths registered in England and Wales in 2013, a rise of 1.5 percent compared with 2012. Of these, 261 205 were in women and 245 585 in men.
There has been a dramatic shift in the causes of death since 2003 with heart attacks plummeting as a proportion of the total, down from 22 percent to 16 percent in men and from 15 percent to 10 per cent in women.
Over the same period, dementia trebled as a cause of male deaths – up from two percent to six percent – and more than doubled in women, up from five percent to 12 percent.
Dementia overtook heart disease as the leading cause of death in women for the first time in 2012. The disease rose as a proportion of deaths in women from 11.5 percent in 2012 to 12.2 percent in 2013.
Gavin Terry, from the Alzheimer’s Society, said “With 225 000 people developing dementia every year and numbers set to soar, dementia is one of the biggest health and social care challenges the UK faces. For too long dementia has been wrongly seen by many clinicians as a natural part of ageing and, as such, they have failed to record it as a cause of death.
“Increasing awareness of the condition has started to combat this, and these figures are likely to be a product of that.”
Hilary Evans, from Alzheimer’s Research UK, said: “Age is the biggest risk factor for dementia, and with women living longer than men, we would expect to see this reflected in cause of death. Sadly, about half a million women in the UK are living with dementia. The figures highlight dementia as a huge problem that we cannot shy away from any longer.
“Encouragingly, the statistics reveal that other health conditions, such as heart disease, are beginning to be tamed and this has come about due to improved research into treatment, prevention and better public health.
“We must now turn our attentions to dementia – our greatest health challenge – and invest in research that will drive better prevention and treatment of the condition.”
Professor Peter Weissberg, from the British Heart Foundation, said heart disease “continues to blight the lives of thousands of people and families”. He added: “We’ve made great progress over the last 50 years but we still need to fund much more research to stop people dying needlessly, and help the increasing number of people living with heart disease.”
Professor Peter Johnson, Cancer Research UK’s chief clinician, said: “Cancer remains a huge challenge. Although we have made great progress, it’s still the highest cause of deaths in England and Wales.
“This is partly because people in the UK are living longer – cancer is more common in older people because there is more time for faults in cells to develop, and these faults trigger the disease.
“The good news is that thanks to research, survival from cancer has doubled in the last 40 years.” - Daily Mail