PEOPLE with poor thinking skills may be at higher risk of heart attack or stroke, a new European study has shown.
SCIENTISTS made the discovery after monitoring the progress of
almost 4000 individuals with an average age of 75 for three years.
At the start of the study, participants had their high-level thinking skills evaluated by tests and were graded accordingly.
Those in the lowest test score group were 85 per cent more likely to
have a heart attack, and 51 per cent more likely to have a stroke than
members of the highest group.
Lead researcher Dr Behnam Sabayan,
from Leiden University Medical Centre in the Netherlands, said the
results showed heart and brain function are more closely related than
appearances would suggest. "While these results might not have
immediate clinical translation, they emphasise that assessment of
cognitive function should be part of the evaluation of future
cardiovascular risk," he said.
During the course of the study, the researchers recorded 375 heart attacks and 155 strokes.
"Worse brain functioning in particular in executive function could
reflect disease of the brain vascular supply, which in turn would
predict, as it did, a higher likelihood of stroke," Dr Sabayan added.
"And, since blood vessel disease in the brain is closely related to
blood vessel disease in the heart, that's why low test scores also
predicted a greater risk of heart attacks. "We acknowledge that even though the results were statistically significant, the risks were small."
No comments:
Post a Comment