Cardiovascular health plays a key role in maintaining brain health. Cardiovascular problems during midlife may increase the risk of cognitive decline and dementia later in life. For example, growing evidence suggests that higher Life’s Simple 7 (LS7) scores – the American Heart Association’s framework encompassing three behavioral and four health factors – are associated with better cognitive performance, reduced dementia risk, and better overall brain health. Similarly, individual cardiovascular risk factors, such as diabetes, obesity, hypertension, high cholesterol, smoking and physical activity, have been associated with an accelerated cognitive decline and increased dementia risk. However, these relationships are not uniform across populations, with some remaining underrepresented in dementia research.
In a recent study published in Alzheimer’s & Dementia: Behavior & Socioeconomics of Aging, a team of researchers led by Prof. L. Satizabal and Prof. Wang (of the University of Texas, San Antonio, Texas, US) investigated how specific cardiovascular health factors may be associated with cognitive aging across different ethnic groups. The study included 402 participants from San Antonio, Texas, of whom 52% were Hispanic and 48% were non-Hispanic white. The participants had a mean age of 57.9 years, and 58.5% were women. They were also participants in the San Antonio Heart Study (SAHS) and the San Antonio Longitudinal Study of Aging (SALSA), which began in 1979 and 1992, respectively.
Cardiovascular health was assessed at the SAHS baseline examination using the LS7 metrics, with each factor classified as ideal, intermediate, or poor. The seven components, smoking, diet, physical activity, body mass index, blood pressure, cholesterol, and fasting blood glucose levels, were scored and summed to generate the LS7 score. General cognitive function was assessed in SALSA using the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE), administered up to four times.
The researchers found that the associations between individual cardiovascular health factors and cognitive decline differed by ethnicity. Among Hispanic participants, higher levels of physical activity were particularly associated with a slower rate of cognitive decline. In contrast, among non-Hispanic white participants, lower fasting blood glucose levels were associated with slower cognitive decline.
Overall, these findings suggest that engaging in physical activity and maintaining healthy fasting blood glucose levels during midlife may be associated with a slower rate of cognitive decline later in life. However, because the associations differed between ethnic groups, these findings may not apply uniformly across populations. Further research in larger and more diverse cohorts is therefore needed to better understand how cardiovascular health may influence cognitive aging across different populations.
https://alz-journals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/bsa3.70096
