Poor Thinking Skills Are Related To Heart Disease

If your score on tests of thinking related to reasoning, solving problems and strategizing is low, then you can rest assured that you might be at greater risk of heart attacks or strokes, says new research, according to midday.

"These results show that heart and brain function are more closely related than appearances would suggest," said study author Behnam Sabayan from Leiden University Medical Center in Leiden, the Netherlands.

However, the study does not prove that there is a "cause-and-effect relationship" between poor thinking skills and heart attacks and strokes---only that there is a link between the two.

"I think other factors can also play roles," Sabayan explained. For example, people who have a slower thought process may find it tougher to follow doctors' advice, according to nlm.

"While these results might not have immediate clinical translation, they emphasise that assessment of cognitive function should be part of the evaluation of future cardiovascular risk," Sabayan noted.

Scientists gathered data from 3,926 people who had an average age of 75 years, but those who did not have a record of heart attacks or strokes. They also did not show symptoms of dementia.

The people were then grouped into 'low,' 'medium' and 'high' sections, going by what conclusions they drew.

All those who belonged to the 'lowest group of thinking skills' exhibited 85 percent more likelihood to end up with heart attacks than those in the higher scoring group. About 176 of the 1,309 people with low scores had heart attacks, compared with 93 of the 1,308 people who exhibited raised scores.

"During follow-up, 375 heart attacks and 155 strokes occurred - the equivalent to 31 heart attacks and 12 strokes per 1,000 person-years," according to medicalnewstoday.

The reasons are, according to Sabayan: "Performance on tests of thinking and memory are a measure of brain health. Lower scores on thinking tests indicate worse brain functioning. Worse brain functioning - in particular, in executive function - could reflect disease of the brain vascular supply, which in turn would predict, as it did, a higher likelihood of stroke. And, since blood vessel disease in the brain is closely related to blood vessel disease in the heart, that's why low test scores also predicted a greater risk of heart attacks."

The study was published online in the journal Neurology.