Dementia cases may triple globally by 2050: Study

Smoking, obesity and high blood sugar are risk factors for dementia.

Unless countries act swiftly to address dementia risk factors, global cases of dementia may triple by 2050, according to a new study published Thursday in the Lancet.

"Our study offers improved forecasts for dementia on a global scale as well as the country-level, giving policy makers and public health experts new insights to understand the drivers of these increases, based on the best available data," lead author Emma Nichols, from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington, said in a statement.

A new mathematical model used for the study estimates that the global prevalence of dementia could nearly triple by 2050 -- from 57 million to 153 million -- with cases in the U.S. increasing from 5.2 million to 10.5 million.

Dementia is currently the seventh-leading cause of death worldwide, according to the World Health Organization. It contributes to significant disability in older people with associated costs globally reaching $1 trillion U.S. in 2019, the WHO reported.