The results of a new study by CEPAR researchers Dr Lidan Zheng and Scientia Professor Kaarin Anstey, in collaboration with Professor Fiona Matthews of Newcastle University, UK, show how having cardiovascular conditions reduces the number of years individuals live in good cognitive health and highlight the areas that may prove most effective targets for dementia risk reduction from a population standpoint.
A number of cardiovascular conditions have been identified to be risk factors for cognitive decline and dementia, including diabetes, stroke, heart diseases and hypertension. The study, published in the Age and Ageing Journal, examines how these cardiovascular conditions relate to cognitive health expectancy – the number of years lived with and without cognitive impairment.
The results reveal that individuals with a cardiovascular condition at the age of 55 live four to eight years shorter in good cognitive health than individuals with no reported conditions.
“However, the outcomes vary depending on the type of cardiovascular condition,” said co-author Dr Lidan Zheng, a CEPAR Associate Investigator at Neuroscience Research Australia.
“Individuals with stroke had the worst cognitive health expectancy outcomes, followed by diabetes, heart disease, and hypertension.
“These results indicate that dementia risk reduction may be most beneficial for individuals with stroke compared with the other cardiovascular conditions,” she said.
The study also reveals that having more than one cardiovascular condition exponentially decreases cognitive health expectancy.
“This highlights the need to keep multiple cardiovascular risk factor exposure to a minimum,” said co-author Kaarin Anstey, CEPAR Deputy Director and Scientia Professor at the UNSW Ageing Futures Institute.
“As the global life expectancy in the older population increases, it has become more important to understand whether the extra years gained are lived in good health.
“There is presently a lack of immediate treatments for Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias. It is therefore important to try to mitigate risk or delay the onset of developing dementia through modifiable risk factors. Knowing how chronic diseases impact on cognitive health expectancy could help inform preventive health policies and individual health advice.
“Our results are in line with recent findings on multiple risk factors of dementia risk and reinforce the need for individuals with pre-existing cardiovascular conditions to avoid exposure to additional cardiovascular risk factors in order to maintain cognitive health,” she said.
Lidan Zheng, Fiona E Matthews, Kaarin J Anstey (2020). Cognitive health expectancies of cardiovascular risk factors for cognitive decline and dementia. Age and Ageing.