Heart Function May Affect Cognitive Skills at Middle Age

 In a study published in an Neurology, changes in the structure and diastolic function of the heart between early adulthood and middle age may be associated with a decline in thinking and memory skills. 

In the last year of this 30-year study participants (n=2,653), who had echocardiograms at enrollment and years 20 and 25, took 6 cognitive tests to measure thinking and memory skills including global cognition, processing speed, executive function, delayed verbal memory, and verbal fluency. 

. Specifically, on the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) which has a maximum of 30 points, individuals with higher than average increases in left ventricle mass had a mean score of 22.7, vs 24 in those without higher than average left ventricle mass increases.

“Cardiovascular risk factors such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol and diabetes have been associated with an increased risk for cognitive impairment, but much less is known about heart structure and function and the risks for cognition,” said study author Laure Rouch, PharmD, PhD, of the University of California, San Francisco. “We followed young adults for 25 years into middle age and found declines in thinking and memory skills independent of these other risk factors. Our findings are of critical importance in the context of identifying potential early markers in the heart of increased risk for later-life cognitive decline. Such abnormalities are common and often underdiagnosed as they do not produce any obvious symptoms.”

The images from the echocardiograms were used to measure the mass of the left ventricle, 1 of 4 chambers of the heart; the volume of the blood that filled the left ventricle when pumping; and how well the left ventricle pumped blood to the body, specifically the percentage of blood pumped out of the heart.

Over the 25 years, average mass increase of the left ventricle of 0.27 g/m2, with average mass of 81 g/m2 in the first year and 86 g/m2 in the last year. There was average increase in left atrial volume of 0.42 mL/m2 with average volume of 16 mL/m2 in the first year and 26 mL/m2 in the last year.