Study Ties Poor Cardiovascular Health to Learning and Memory Deficits

People with poor cardiovascular health are at a greater risk of having memory and learning deficits.

Cardiovascular health is known to play a key role in the healthy functioning of the brain and a decline in cardiac health can elevate the risk of cognitive decline. The new research, documented in the journal of American Heart Association, claims that the risk of developing cognitive impairment is high among those with poor cardiovascular health compared to people with intermediate or ideal cardiovascular health.

The study included 17,761 people of age 45 and older who reported having normal cognitive function and had no history of stroke.  Four years later, the researchers evaluated their mental function.  

Data from Reasons for Geographic and Racial Differences in Stroke (REGARS) was used in order to determine the health status of the subjects based on The American Heart Association Life's Simple 7 ^TM score. The  REGARDS study had 55 percent women, 42 percent of African-American origin people, 58 percent whites and 56 percent who were residents of the 'stroke belt'.

The stroke belt includes states of Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee.

The cognitive function assessment involved tests that measured their verbal learning, memory and fluency.  Using three-trial ten item word list they determined the verbal learning and for the ability to recall the ten-item list was used after a brief interval, which helped determine the verbal memory and the verbal fluency was determined by asking the participants to name as many animals as possible in a span of 60 seconds.

The researchers observed that subjects with lowest cardiovascular health scores suffered a high risk of developing learning impairment. They also had low scores in memory and verbal fluency tests when compared to their counterparts with intermediate or better cardiovascular health.

After taking into consideration the differences in age, sex, race and education, the researchers noticed cognitive impairment in 4.6 percent of the subjects with worst cardiovascular health scores, 2.7 percent who had intermediate health profiles and 2.6 percent in those that had best cardiovascular health.

"Even when ideal cardiovascular health is not achieved intermediate levels of cardiovascular health are preferable to low levels for better cognitive function," said lead investigator Evan L. "This is an encouraging message because intermediate cardiovascular health is a more realistic target for many individuals than ideal cardiovascular health."

 Higher cardiovascular health scores were more common in men and those with higher income and higher education.