Reuters (4/11, Rapaport) reports, “Middle-aged people with risk factors for heart attacks and stroke are also more likely to develop changes in the brain that can lead to Alzheimer’s disease,” researchers concluded after examining “data from 346 adults who had been evaluated for vascular risk factors since the late 1980s, when they were 52 years old on average and none of them had dementia.” Then, more than 20 years “later, when participants were around 76 years old, they had brain scans that looked for evidence of Alzheimer’s” in the form of amyloid plaques.
According to MedPage Today (4/11, Fiore), “unlike midlife vascular risk factors, late-life vascular risk factors were not associated with brain amyloid deposition on late-life PET scans,” the findings revealed. The study, which was “supported by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute,” was published April 11 in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
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— “Risk factors for heart disease and stroke also tied to Alzheimer’s,” Lisa Rapaport, Reuters, April 11, 2017.