Gong J, Harris K, Peters SAE, et al. - Given gender represents an essential modifier for many diseases including Alzheimer disease, researchers herein assessed the gender disparities in the link between major cardiovascular risk factors and the risk of all-cause dementia in the UK Biobank. In addition, they investigated if gender disparities differed across age groups and socioeconomic status (SES). The analyses involved 502,226 people in midlife (54.4% female, mean age 56.5 years) with no prevalent dementia. Gender was found to be related to dementia risk, where the risk was lower in females vs males. Factors such as current smoking, diabetes, high adiposity, prior stroke and low SES were shown to be related to a greater risk of dementia, similarly in females and males. The link between blood pressure (BP) and dementia was noted to be U-shaped in males but had a dose-response link in females. Findings demonstrated that various mid-life cardiovascular risk factors were related to dementia similarly in females and males, but not elevated BP.