Better cardiovascular health wards off dementia in older adults

Improvements in cardiovascular health (CVH) appear to exert a strong protective effect against dementia in older Asians, reports a recent Korea study.

Drawing from the senior database of the National Health Insurance Service of Korea, the researchers assessed 191,013 older adults (aged ≥65 years, 42.9 percent men) who had no prior dementia or cerebrovascular disease.

CVH was quantified as a composite of six metrics: total cholesterol, fasting plasma glucose, blood pressure (BP), body mass index (BMI), smoking, and exercise. Participants were categorized as having low (0–2 optimal metrics), moderate (3–4 optimal metrics), or high (5–6 optimal metrics) CVH status. A continuous 12-point CVH score was also calculated, such that each participant could earn a maximum of 2 points for each individual CVH metric.

Over a median follow-up of 6.2 years, 34,872 cases of dementia were reported. Stratified according to CVH status, the incidence rates were 2.96, 2.76, and 2.32 per 100 person-years in participants of low, moderate, and high CVH, respectively.

Multivariate time-varying Cox regression analysis revealed that having moderate (hazard ratio [HR], 0.91, 95 percent confidence interval [CI], 0.89–0.92) and high (HR, 0.78, 95 percent CI, 0.7–0.8) CVH were associated with lower risks of dementia overall.                                    

Moreover, each additional optimal metric likewise led to a drop in dementia risk (HR, 0.94, 95 percent CI, 0.93–0.94), as did each 1-point increase in the overall 12-point CVH score (HR, 0.93, 95 percent CI, 0.93–0.94).