Sexual minority (SM) women, particularly bisexual and mostly heterosexual women, have more symptoms of subjective cognitive decline (SCD) than completely heterosexual women. SCD is a key predictor of dementia.
This is according to a study – “Sexual Orientation Disparities in Subjective Cognitive Decline in a Large Cohort of Female Nurses” by Sarah McKetta, Isa Berzansky, Colleen A. Reynolds, Francine Grodstein, Deborah Blacker, and Brittany M. Charlton –that was published in LGBT Health.
The researchers noted that it is accepted that SM women have more dementia risk factors than heterosexual women. And yet “it remains unknown whether they experience increased symptoms of SCD, a key dementia predictor.”
For this study, the researchers investigated sexual orientation-related disparities in SCD in Nurses’ Health Study II (N = 70,772). Sexual orientation subgroups included completely heterosexual (n = 62,884); participants identifying as heterosexual with same-sex experience (“heterosexual-SM”, n = 5017); and participants identifying as mostly heterosexual (n = 1825), bisexual (n = 287), or lesbian/gay (n = 759). SCD was measured using seven symptoms from the Structured Telephone Interview for Dementia Assessment, controlling for demographics with Poisson regression models.
Key findings included:
- Relative to completely heterosexual participants, SM participants had 29% more SCD symptoms.
- Symptoms were elevated in every SM subgroup; the largest disparities were among bisexual and mostly heterosexual subgroups, followed by lesbian/gay, and heterosexual-SM participants.
The researchers emphasized that since SM women — particularly bisexual and mostly heterosexual women — had more symptoms of SCD than completely heterosexual women, “better understanding and closer monitoring of cognitive health in SM groups remains important for prevention efforts as an increasing proportion of aging (people) identifies as SM.”
