Men With This Health Risk May Get Dementia 10 Years Earlier Than Women

Blood pressure has been linked to an increased risk of dementia over and over again, though it seems medicating the condition correctly more or less eliminates its negative cognitive effects. 

Now, it seems there’s a striking gender difference between cardiovascular risk on when people develop dementia. 

It seems that men, but not women, with more heart health risk factors are more likely to develop dementia an average of ten years earlier.

“The influence of cardiovascular disease on dementia in men a decade before the females is not known before,” Dr. Paul Edison, professor of neuroscience at Imperial College London, told CNN. 

The findings come from a study published in the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery & Psychiatry.

What counts as “cardiovascular risk” and how did it affect participants?

The researchers looked at 34,425 participants of the UK Biobank with an age range of 45-62. The average age was 63. 

Scientists looked at the visceral fat of the people involved in the study and used the Framingham Risk Score to assess participants’ cardiovascular risk. That score is found by looking at people’s age, blood fats, systolic blood pressure, the presence of blood pressure medication, smoking, and diabetes. 

They used Voxel-based morphometry (VBM) neuroimaging to find out how those cardiovascular risk factors related to a person’s brain condition as they aged.

The strongest dementia risk from cardiovascular risk and obesity came ten years earlier for men than it did for women and tended to be more severe, the researchers found. 

For men, this happened between the ages of 55 and 74, while women were most susceptible between the ages of 65 and 74.

Cardiovascular risk and obesity were associated with more cognitive decline, often seen as a precursor to dementia, for both genders, however.

Does this mean higher cardiovascular risk will definitely give me dementia?

The paper doesn’t say that (nor does it say increased cardiovascular risk definitely causes dementia; it just showed a link), but it does suggest researching the link further. 

Previous dementia research has highlighted the importance of treating any existing cardiovascular issues.

“Modifiable cardiovascular risk factors, including obesity, deserve special attention in the treatment/prevention of neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer’s disease,” the researchers told the BMJ Group.

“This highlights the importance of aggressively targeting cardiovascular risk factors before the age of 55 years to prevent neurodegeneration and Alzheimer’s disease, in addition to the benefit of preventing other cardiovascular events, such as myocardial infarction [heart attack] and stroke,” they stressed.

“One such possibility may be in the repurposing of agents used for obesity and type 2 diabetes mellitus for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease.”