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A new study suggests smoking, high blood pressure , diabetes and being overweight in middle age may cause brain shrinkage andlead to cognitive problems up to a decade later. The study ispublished in the August 2, 2011, print issue of Neurology®, themedical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. "These factors appeared to cause the brain to lose volume, todevelop lesions secondary to presumed vascular injury, and alsoappeared to affect its ability to plan and make decisions asquickly as 10 years later. A different pattern of association wasobserved for each of the factors," said study author CharlesDeCarli, MD, with the University of California at Davis inSacramento and a Fellow of the American Academy of Neurology. "Ourfindings provide evidence that identifying these risk factors earlyin people of middle age could be useful in screening people forat-risk dementia and encouraging people to make changes to their lifestyle beforeit's too late." The study involved 1,352 people without dementia from theFramingham Offspring Study with an average age of 54. Participants had body mass and waist circumference measures takenand were given blood pressure, cholesterol and diabetes tests. They also underwent brain MRI scans over thespan of a decade, the first starting about seven years after theinitial risk factor exam. Participants with stroke and dementia at baseline were excluded, and between the first andlast MRI exams, 19 people had a stroke and two developed dementia. The study found that people with high blood pressure developedwhite matter hyperintensities, or small areas of vascular braindamage, at a faster rate than those with normal blood pressurereadings and had a more rapid worsening of scores on tests ofexecutive function, or planning and decision making, correspondingto five and eight years of chronological aging respectively. People with diabetes in middle age lost brain volume in thehippocampus (measured indirectly using a surrogate marker) at afaster rate than those without diabetes. Smokers lost brain volumeoverall and in the hippocampus at a faster rate than nonsmokers andwere also more likely to have a rapid increase in white matterhyperintensities. People who were obese at middle age were more likely to be in thetop 25 percent of those with the faster rate of decline in scoreson tests of executive function, DeCarli said. People with a highwaist-to-hip ratio were more likely to be in the top 25 percent ofthose with faster decrease in their brain volume. The study was supported by the National Heart, Lung, and BloodInstitute, the National Institute of Neurological Disorders andStroke and the National Institute on Aging. Source: American Academy of Neurology (AAN) Additional References Citations. The e-commerce company in China offers quality products such as Handmade Oil Paint Manufacturer , China Wall Sticker Clock, and more. For more , please visit Wall Sticker Clock today!
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