Women are more biologically sensitive to Alzheimer's disease (AD) than men, which causes their health condition to deteriorate faster, said Hermona Soreq, an Israeli molecular neuroscientist. Soreq made the remarks ahead of an academic conference co-sponsored by Israel Science Foundation on January 14. 

Many questions on AD are not resolved yet. "That calls for research," Soreq said. She is promoting more research on diseases of aged people including Alzheimer's.

Alzheimer's is a chronic neurodegenerative disease that slowly destroys people's body functions and gradually worsens over time. About 50 million people worldwide have dementia. AD is the root cause behind 60 percent to 70 percent of the cases, according to the World Health Organization.

Soreq said although clinicians claim AD is not genetic, many genes can contribute to the disease, which makes it more difficult to identify those genes. "Today, we know some genes that increased the risk, but this doesn't mean you would get sick," she noted. 

Soreq still holds a positive attitude that people will finally find a cure to AD.

"Generations ago, cancers were diagnosed too late to be treated. Today, you can diagnose it early and people live quite longer after they discovered they had cancer and they were treated," she said.

An innovative Chinese Alzheimer's drug that hit the domestic market at the end of 2019 will go through clinical trials on 2,000 patients overseas in 2020, according to Xinhua News Agency.

Israeli scienctist Hermona Soreq Photo: Chen Shasha/GT