According to data collected by the World Health Organization (WHO), almost 50 million people would be affected by dementia worldwide. In addition, no less than 10 million new cases are reported each year. As a reminder, dementia is characterized by a progressive decline in cognitive and mental functions, which generally causes memory loss, impaired judgment, etc. As the manual says MSDthis pathology occurs mainly in people over the age of 65 on average. Dementia is often caused by a combination of diseases and/or traumas affecting the brain. The most famous of the examples still remains today Alzheimer’s disease. However, some people are more likely than others to develop this pathology. In any case, this is what researchers have demonstrated in a study published within the Journal of the American Heart Association on August 10, 2022. According to the scientists’ findings, people with atrial heart disease may be at increased risk of dementia.
As a reminder, heart problems are also often associated with an increased risk of stroke (AVC), and atrial fibrillation (AF). As part of their work, the authors behind this famous study, who officiate at the Faculty of Medicine at Johns Hopkins University in the United States, have collected a lot of data from 15,792 participants, over twenty years. In detail, 59% of the people studied were women, while 41% were men, all aged 75 on average. Participants’ hearts were scanned between 2011 and 2013 using transthoracic echocardiography. In fact, these tests are usually performed on people who have had a heart attack, or congenital heart disease. Subsequently, the participants carried out a 2nd test between 2016 and 2017, then a 3rd between 2018 and 2019. These were intended to measure their brain performance. Scientists were also looking for cases of dementia among them. Other visits were still set up during the years that followed, so that the people studied carried out additional tests. In total, 5,952 participants were evaluated for cognitive decline indicative of dementia.
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Link between heart disease and dementia: more research is needed
The results of this famous study show that 763 of them developed dementia, while 1,709 suffered from atrial heart disease. The researchers also concluded that 34% of patients with atrial heart disease were more likely to develop dementia. “We found that patients with atrial heart disease as we defined it in our study had a higher risk, or rate, of dementia over time than those without atrial heart disease.“, indicated in a communiqué Professor Michelle Johansen, who is the lead author of this study. The scientists also pointed out that further research still seems necessary to better understand the mechanism behind this association.