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Heart attacks can dramatically speed up mental decline

"For too long, we have thought about and addressed heart disease and brain disease as two separate conditions, and based on our study’s findings and other research, I don’t think we’re going to be able to keep doing that as we learn more."

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By Tom Campbell via SWNS

Heart attack survivors are not out of the woods as it can turbo-charge mental decline, warns a new study.

Patients who show early signs of dementia after suffering a heart attack are more likely to deteriorate quickly, say scientists.

Heart attacks are responsible for more than 100,000 hospital admissions in the UK each year, or in other words one every five minutes.

Luckily, better treatment options are available which means many more people survive heart attacks today than in the past.

But now scientists in the United States have warned these people could suffer rapid cognitive decline over the next few years.

Lead author Dr. Michelle Johansen said: "We need to realize that what’s going on in the heart and brain are related.

"Managing risk factors to prevent a heart attack is actually good for your brain as well."

Data from six long-term studies conducted between 1971 and 2017 was analyzed by the researchers.

These involved 31,377 people with an average age of 60 who had not suffered a heart attack or been diagnosed with dementia.

The data from each of the studies had to be harmonized by a team of neuroscientists and statisticians before their analysis could begin.

This was because each study tested participants at different time intervals using various cognitive measures.

These tests were divided into three categories including memory, executive functioning and global cognition.

Executive function refers to people's ability to pay attention, plan, organise and make complex decisions.

Their global cognition on the other hand is determined by their overall performance on cognitive tests which combine memory and executive function exercises.

Participants were followed for between 4.9 and 19.7 years during which time 1,047 suffered a heart attack.

Those who did, experienced "significantly faster" declines in memory, executive functioning and global cognition over the next few years.

There are now more than 1.4 million people living in the UK who have survived a heart attack.

Dr. Johansen said: "Dementia is a slow, step-wise process. One doesn’t wake up out of the blue with dementia.

"If a heart attack is a factor in the development of dementia, you would not anticipate that after adjusting for how sick a patient is that there would be cognitive decline immediately, however, we did find the significant change occurs several years later.

There are a number of possible explanations for why heart attacks can lead to faster cognitive decline.

Silent strokes, which are too small to notice, could cause ongoing damage to the brain by limiting its oxygen supply.

Alternatively, risk factors like smoking and high blood pressure which are linked to both heart attacks and dementia could be responsible.

People could also face a greater risk of mini-clots going to the brain if their heart's structure is damaged, the researchers say.

Dr. Johansen said: "For too long, we have thought about and addressed heart disease and brain disease as two separate conditions, and based on our study’s findings and other research, I don’t think we’re going to be able to keep doing that as we learn more."

The results cannot be generalized to other countries where there is less access to medical care given all the studies were carried out in the United States.

Dr. Johansen said: “The impact of a heart attack on cognitive function may turn out to be worse in places that don’t have access to things like blood pressure medications and statins to control disease after a heart attack.

"We don’t know, yet it is definitely something to think about, and it emphasises the importance of preventing and treating heart attacks worldwide, not simply in the United States."

The findings were presented at the American Stroke Association’s International Stroke Conference 2022.

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