The strong link between brain health and heart health is reinforced in a new study. The research showed that as cardiovascular health falters, so too does thinking and memory.
In one of the largest and longest studies of its kind to date, researchers studied a group of nearly 8,000 people in the United Kingdom. The participants were over 49 years of age and their health was tracked from 2002 to 2017.
Everyone in the study had relatively healthy hearts and brains at the beginning of the research. People with a history of stroke, heart attack, angina, dementia or Alzheimer's disease were excluded.
But over 15 years of follow-up, nearly 6% of the participants did go on to suffer a heart attack or angina (chest pain), according to a team led by Wuxiang Xie, a research fellow at the Imperial College School of Public Health in London.
The researchers found that all of these participants also displayed a faster decline in their mental function, concurrent with the heart trouble.
Patients who suffered from angina had a significant decline in tests of "temporal orientation" -- being able to accurately state the current date, day of week and time. Patients who had a heart attack showed a substantial decline in tests of verbal memory (assessed by a word-memory test) and language fluency. They also had the worse cognitive decline overall, the researchers found.
All of that is important, because "even small differences in cognitive function can result in an increased risk of dementia in the long-term," Xie said in a news release from the American College of Cardiology.
"Because there is no current cure for dementia, early detection and intervention are essential to delay the progression to dementia," Xie said. "Heart attack and angina patients need careful monitoring in the years following a diagnosis."
The connection between declines in memory and thinking and heart disease may be as simple as the brain not getting the amount of oxygen that it used to, the researchers theorized. Tiny "microinfarcts" -- heart-linked damage to small vessels in the brain -- might hamper blood flow and oxygen supply.
Two U.S. experts who reviewed the findings agreed that the heart-brain connection is crucial to health.
"This study further emphasizes that approaching the body holistically is crucial for brain health and to prevent dementia," said Dr. Gayatri Devi. She is a neurologist specializing in memory disorders at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City.
"Brain health is dependent on heart health and health of the entire individual," Devi added.
Dr. Guy Mintz directs cardiovascular health at North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset, N.Y. He called the new study "a wake-up call for physicians to improve the risk factors associated with atherosclerosis [hardening of the arteries] early in life."
Mintz pointed out that "patients can live with heart disease, but patients and their families suffer from decline in brain function. Watching someone become mentally lost in life is tragic and, in some cases associated with atherosclerosis, may be preventable."
Devi stressed that keeping the brain sharp involves fitness of both mind and body.
"It is not enough to do Sudoku or crossword puzzles. It is just as important to take care of the body," she said. "Proven ways to prevent brain disease, including Alzheimer's dementia and stroke, are to take better care of one's heart and body, by exercising, eating and sleeping well, and refraining from smoking."
The new report was published June 17 in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.
In one of the largest and longest studies of its kind to date, researchers studied a group of nearly 8,000 people in the United Kingdom. The participants were over 49 years of age and their health was tracked from 2002 to 2017.
Everyone in the study had relatively healthy hearts and brains at the beginning of the research. People with a history of stroke, heart attack, angina, dementia or Alzheimer's disease were excluded.
But over 15 years of follow-up, nearly 6% of the participants did go on to suffer a heart attack or angina (chest pain), according to a team led by Wuxiang Xie, a research fellow at the Imperial College School of Public Health in London.
The researchers found that all of these participants also displayed a faster decline in their mental function, concurrent with the heart trouble.
Patients who suffered from angina had a significant decline in tests of "temporal orientation" -- being able to accurately state the current date, day of week and time. Patients who had a heart attack showed a substantial decline in tests of verbal memory (assessed by a word-memory test) and language fluency. They also had the worse cognitive decline overall, the researchers found.
All of that is important, because "even small differences in cognitive function can result in an increased risk of dementia in the long-term," Xie said in a news release from the American College of Cardiology.
"Because there is no current cure for dementia, early detection and intervention are essential to delay the progression to dementia," Xie said. "Heart attack and angina patients need careful monitoring in the years following a diagnosis."
The connection between declines in memory and thinking and heart disease may be as simple as the brain not getting the amount of oxygen that it used to, the researchers theorized. Tiny "microinfarcts" -- heart-linked damage to small vessels in the brain -- might hamper blood flow and oxygen supply.
Two U.S. experts who reviewed the findings agreed that the heart-brain connection is crucial to health.
"This study further emphasizes that approaching the body holistically is crucial for brain health and to prevent dementia," said Dr. Gayatri Devi. She is a neurologist specializing in memory disorders at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City.
"Brain health is dependent on heart health and health of the entire individual," Devi added.
Dr. Guy Mintz directs cardiovascular health at North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset, N.Y. He called the new study "a wake-up call for physicians to improve the risk factors associated with atherosclerosis [hardening of the arteries] early in life."
Mintz pointed out that "patients can live with heart disease, but patients and their families suffer from decline in brain function. Watching someone become mentally lost in life is tragic and, in some cases associated with atherosclerosis, may be preventable."
Devi stressed that keeping the brain sharp involves fitness of both mind and body.
"It is not enough to do Sudoku or crossword puzzles. It is just as important to take care of the body," she said. "Proven ways to prevent brain disease, including Alzheimer's dementia and stroke, are to take better care of one's heart and body, by exercising, eating and sleeping well, and refraining from smoking."
The new report was published June 17 in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.
In an effort to improve the lives of millions of people with asthma, researchers say they've completed the first mapping of lung and airway cells, which may lead to new therapies for the common lung condition.
ReplyDeleteThe mapping reveals differences between airways in people with and without asthma, and in how lung cells communicate with one another, the study authors said.
Understanding the cells and their signals could help efforts to find new drug targets to treat asthma, according to the report.
The investigators also discovered a new cell state that produces mucus in asthma patients.
For the study, the team analyzed more than 36,000 cells from the nasal area and from three areas of the lung from 17 people without asthma. This revealed which genes were active in each cell and identified specific cell types.
The researchers then analyzed cells from six asthma patients. That analysis uncovered distinct differences in the cells and how they communicate with one another, compared to people without asthma.
"We have generated a detailed anatomical map of the respiratory airways, producing the first draft human lung cell atlas from both normal and asthmatic people," said study co-author Felipe Vieira Braga of Wellcome Sanger Institute, in Hinxton, England.
"This has given us a better definition of the cell types in asthmatic lungs, and allowed us to discover an entirely new cell state in asthmatic patients that produces mucus," Braga explained in an institute news release.
Study co-author Martijn Nawijn, of University Medical Center Groningen in the Netherlands, added that, normally, all kinds of cells communicate with each other to keep the airways functioning well.
"But in asthma patients, almost all of those interactions are lost," Nawijn said. "Instead of a network of interactions, in asthma the inflammatory cells seem to completely dominate the communication in the airways."
A better understanding of the types of cells in the lungs of asthma patients, and how those cells communicate, could lead to new drugs to prevent cells from responding to inflammatory signals.
The researchers also found that cells in different areas of the lung have very different activities. That could also aid efforts to develop new asthma drugs.
Asthma, which affected more than 350 million people worldwide in 2015, is caused by swelling of the tubes that carry air in and out of the lungs, making it difficult to get enough oxygen.
Drug overdoses and suicide are common causes of death among women who die within a year of giving birth, a new study finds.
ReplyDeleteIn fact, in the study based on data from California, these two causes accounted for nearly 20% of postpartum deaths from 2010 to 2012.
"These deaths are rare but devastating for families," said study co-author Claire Margerison, an assistant professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at Michigan State University, in East Lansing. "We need to place more emphasis on prevention."
For the study, Margerison and her colleagues analyzed more than 1 million medical records from California hospitals.
While maternal death rates during and after pregnancy are rising nationwide, California is below the national average. Even so, drug overdose was the second-leading cause of death among California women in the first year after giving birth. Suicide ranked seventh.
Suicide and fatal overdoses were more common among white and poor women, the study found.
The data aren't sufficient to identify trends but could inform future studies, the researchers said. The findings, however, might be a sign of what's occurring across the country.
Although maternal death rates have dropped in California because of efforts to improve care, mental health and drug abuse continue to affect many new mothers.
Some of these deaths might reflect stigmas that stop women from getting help for mental health and drug problems, the researchers suggested.
About 75% of those who died had visited an emergency department at least once after giving birth, so the ER might be a place where these problems can be identified and treatment begun, the study authors said.
The majority of these deaths happened in the second half of the year after birth, which indicates that women should stay connected with addiction and suicide prevention programs, Margerison said in a university news release.
"These deaths are likely just the tip of the iceberg in terms of substance use and mental distress," she said. "We need to take the next steps to understand how to help women who experience these problems during and after pregnancy."
The report was published online June 4 in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology.