High Blood Pressure, Diabetes, Smoking and
Obesity in Middle Age may Shrink Brain,
damage thinking
Newswise, August 4, 2011--A new study
suggests smoking, high blood pressure,
diabetes and being overweight in middle age
may cause brain shrinkage and lead to
cognitive problems up to a decade later.
The study is published in the August 2,
2011, print issue of Neurology®, the
medical journal of the American Academy of
Neurology.
“These factors appeared to cause the brain
to lose volume, to develop lesions secondary
to presumed vascular injury, and also
appeared to affect its ability to plan and
make decisions as quickly as 10 years later.
A different pattern of association was
observed for each of the factors,” said
study author Charles DeCarli, MD, with the
University of California at Davis in
Sacramento and a Fellow of the American
Academy of Neurology.
“Our findings provide evidence that
identifying these risk factors early in
people of middle age could be useful in
screening people for at-risk dementia and
encouraging people to make changes to their
lifestyle before it’s too late.”
The study involved 1,352 people without
dementia from the Framingham Offspring Study
with an average age of 54.
Participants had body mass and waist
circumference measures taken and were given
blood pressure, cholesterol and diabetes
tests. They also underwent brain MRI scans
over the span of a decade, the first
starting about seven years after the initial
risk factor exam. Participants with stroke
and dementia at baseline were excluded, and
between the first and last MRI exams, 19
people had a stroke and two developed
dementia.
The study found that people with high blood
pressure developed white matter
hyperintensities, or small areas of vascular
brain damage, at a faster rate than those
with normal blood pressure readings and had
a more rapid worsening of scores on tests of
executive function, or planning and decision
making, corresponding to five and eight
years of chronological aging respectively.
People with diabetes in middle age lost
brain volume in the hippocampus (measured
indirectly using a surrogate marker) at a
faster rate than those without diabetes.
Smokers lost brain volume overall and in the
hippocampus at a faster rate than nonsmokers
and were also more likely to have a rapid
increase in white matter hyperintensities.
People who were obese at middle age were
more likely to be in the top 25 percent of
those with the faster rate of decline in
scores on tests of executive function,
DeCarli said. People with a high
waist-to-hip ratio were more likely to be in
the top 25 percent of those with faster
decrease in their brain volume.
The study was supported by the National
Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, the
National Institute of Neurological Disorders
and Stroke and the National Institute on
Aging.
The American Academy of Neurology, an
association of 24,000 neurologists and
neuroscience professionals, is dedicated to
promoting the highest quality
patient-centered neurologic care. A
neurologist is a doctor with specialized
training in diagnosing, treating and
managing disorders of the brain and nervous
system such as Alzheimer’s disease, stroke,
migraine, multiple sclerosis, brain injury,
Parkinson’s disease and epilepsy.
For more information about the American
Academy of Neurology, visit http://www.aan.com.
