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For those like myself that freak about this kind of stuff, and did not read through carefully, the effect is pretty small and requires taking a lot of benadryl:

"Three years of taking either daily Benadryl, Advil PM, Tylenol PM, or Motrin PM, for example, is associated with about a ten percentage point increase in the probability of experiencing dementia or Alzheimer's compared to no use."

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Considering Benadryl is a medication many people take daily for several months of the year, every year, it's not that much.

Is there a large group of people that prefers diphenhydramine over the newer drugs?

I've used it occasionally for bee stings and the like, I would rather suffer through hay fever than take Benadryl every day.

I can't speak to the size of the group, but I would certainly fall within it. For my condition (dermatographic urticaria), the newer drugs (loratadine, desloratadine, cetirizine, fexofenadine) provided very little relief and quickly lost efficacy. Diphenhydramine (and later promethazine, with also has anti-cholinergic effects) provide significantly better relief, are well tolerated (no noticeable drowsiness), and have retained their efficacy over a number of months.

I don't know if this is a common experience or not, but it's not unheard of.

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