Future Heart and Brain Health Are Clearly Linked

Back in 2007 there was a study showing that high blood pressure in people over 65 was linked to mild cognitive impairment (MCI).  Now we learn that an adverse cardiovascular risk profile in otherwise healthy middle-aged people is associated with poor cognitive function in later life.  Results of this latest study will be presented at the American Academy of Neurology’s Annual Meeting in April.

French researchers evaluated almost 3,500 men and 1,300 women, average age 55, from the Whitehall II Study; this is a longitudinal study of British civil servants (government employees). Over a 10-year period, participants had cognitive testing at three intervals, measuring reasoning, memory, fluency, and vocabulary.  They also had physical and lab exams to determine their cardiac risk using the Framingham General Cardiovascular Risk Profile (age, gender, LDL-cholesterol, HDL-cholesterol, systolic blood pressure, smoking status, and diabetes status).   

Analyses showed that the participants who had a higher cardiovascular risk were more likely to have lower cognitive function scores and a faster rate of cognitive decline, compared with those with the lowest cardiac risk.  A 10% increase in risk on the Framingham scale was associated with a 2.8% decrease in memory test scores for men and a 7.1% decrease for women.  After adjusting for age, ethnicity, marital status, and education, a 10% higher cardiovascular risk was associated with poorer mental functioning test scores in all areas except reasoning for men, and fluency for women.

It looks as if both the heart and brain should benefit from efforts to manage the Framingham item.  One expert has stated: “Both the heart and brain receive their blood supply through arteries that have the same vulnerability to high blood pressure, high cholesterol and smoking.  What’s bad for the heart is bad for the brain, and what protects the heart will often protect the brain.”  (I’m not going to say any more about the persistent fluency in women, in case my wife reads this.)