Cardiac Risks in Youth Associate With Worse Cognitive Function in Later Life
The publicity materials for this study discuss cardiac risks such as high blood pressure and blood glucose in youth without mentioning how they usually come about. The most common path towards suffering these danger signs in earlier life is to let yourself become fat and sedentary. Both of these line items are independently associated with greater ill-health and medical expenditure in later life:
Young adults with such cardiac risk factors as high blood pressure and elevated glucose levels have significantly worse cognitive function in middle age, according to a new study by dementia researchers. The findings bolster the view that diseases like Alzheimer's develop over an individual's lifespan and may be set in motion early in life. And they offer hope that young adults may be able to lower their risk of developing dementia through diet and exercise, or even by taking medications."These cardiovascular risk factors are all quite modifiable. We already know that reducing these risk factors in midlife can decrease the risk of dementia in old age. If it turns out that the damage begins before middle age, we may need to expand our focus and work on reducing heart disease risks in earlier stages of life."
The study examines data from more than 3,300 18- to 30-year-olds in the Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults (CARDIA) study, which began enrolling thousands of participants nationwide in 1985 to understand how heart disease develops in black and white adults. Cardiac risk factors were measured every two to five years for 25 years, at which point those in the study underwent tests to measure their executive function, cognitive processing speed and verbal memory. Those whose blood pressure and glucose exceeded recommended levels during the 25-year study performed worse on all three tests, while high cholesterol was associated only with poor verbal memory.
The authors cited a number of mechanisms by which elevated blood pressure and glucose could diminish cognition in middle age, such as by reducing blood supply to the brain, causing changes in brain structure and increasing inflammation and oxidative stress, which can damage neurons. Another possibility is that these risk factors may interfere with the clearance of amyloid proteins associated with Alzheimer's disease.
Link: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2014-03/uoc--ecr033114.php