Home

Outreach

Research

Caregivers

Facts & FAQs

Study: Heart Disease Linked to Alzheimer's

The Philadelphia Inquirer - July 21, 2004 PHILADELPHIA _ What’s good for your heart likely is good for your head, according to a growing number of studies on the risk factors for Alzheimer’s disease. Four studies released Tuesday in Philadelphia added more evidence that Alzheimer’s and cardiovascular disease are related somehow. They found connections between memory function and high blood pressure, good cholesterol, diabetes and insulin levels. "This evidence has been accumulating in big studies ... over the past two or three years," said Hugh C. Hendrie, co-director of the Center for Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Neuropsychiatric Disorders at Indiana University. "This is a very, very important area and something that’s going to be approached vigorously over the next few years." Hendrie spoke Tuesday at a news conference at the International Conference on Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Disorders at the Convention Center. Why risk factors for heart disease would also affect Alzheimer’s is uncertain, he said. One possibility is that people with cardiovascular problems are more prone to small strokes, which cause one form of dementia and may worsen the impact of Alzheimer’s disease. Another possibility is that the small strokes help cause or worsen the brain abnormalities characteristic of Alzheimer’s. Or, the same factors that affect the cardiovascular system may cause problems in the brain in a different, independent way. Suzanne Craft, associate director of geriatric research at the Veterans Affairs Puget Sound Healthcare System, studied what happened to thinking when patients with Alzheimer’s, or a type of memory impairment that often precedes it, were given a drug that improves a metabolic condition known as insulin resistance. Insulin resistance often precedes diabetes and is characterized by high levels of insulin in the blood and a reduced ability of the hormone to do its normal job. Evidence is growing that insulin resistance is a risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease, as well as an underlying factor in Type II diabetes, obesity and cardiovascular disease, Craft said. While small amounts of insulin are beneficial, she said, large quantities are quite harmful. Craft treated 20 patients with rosiglitazone (Avandia), a drug that helps the body use insulin properly, and compared them with 10 patients who received a placebo. After six months, the treated group performed better on memory tests. On the basis of the study, the drug’s maker, GlaxoSmithKline, has started a larger trial in Europe, and Craft is doing further research on patients with mild cognitive impairment. Craft said insulin resistance was an "epidemic condition." She believes everyone over 50 should be tested for it. Jacobo Mintzer, chief of geriatric psychiatry at the Medical University of South Carolina, looked at the subject from a different angle. He studied cognitive decline among people in the Charleston Heart Study, which began following patients in 1960. The overall risk of cognitive decline was 20 percent. But 50 percent of diabetics with low glucose levels suffered a mental decline, compared with just 13.9 percent of diabetics with high blood sugar. Diabetes is caused by dysregulation of insulin. Mintzer believes high levels of insulin are behind the mental problems he detected. In untreated diabetics, high levels of insulin go with low glucose and low insulin goes with high glucose. High glucose, the hallmark of diabetes, is definitely bad for you. But Mintzer and Craft agreed that doctors needed to pay more attention to insulin levels when treating high blood sugar. (EDITORS: STORY CAN END HERE) In another study, Elizabeth Devore, a third-year doctoral student at the Harvard School of Public Health, found that women with high levels of HDL, or good cholesterol, were half as likely to have thinking problems years later as women in the bottom 20 percent for HDL. Exercise is the best way to improve HDL, she said. Eating nuts and olive oil and moderate alcohol intake also can raise HDL. Using data from a study of Cache County, Utah, residents, Ara Khachaturian, a managing associate of Khachaturian & Associates Inc., a consulting group on Alzheimer’s disease, found that patients on diuretics for hypertension were 36 percent less likely to get Alzheimer’s disease. Their risk was even lower if they used potassium-sparing diuretics. Other types of blood-pressure medications had no effect on dementia risk in his study.

Martinez
150 Muir Road (127A)
Martinez, CA 94553-4612
Telephone: (925) 372-2485

Sacramento
Lawrence J. Ellison Ambulatory Care Center
4860 Y Street, Suite 3900
Sacramento, CA 95817
Telephone: (916) 734-5496