Better heart health at midlife linked to less cognitive decline in Black women

Better heart health may mean middle-aged Black women are less likely to show cognitive decline than those with poor heart health, 一项研究发现.

Researchers said the study highlights the importance of heart health in protecting the brain. "Better cardiovascular health in women in their 40s is important to prevent later-life Alzheimer's disease, 痴呆症和维持独立生活,该研究的主要作者说, Dr. 我叫杨森，他说 沙巴足球体育平台发布会上. She is a professor of family and preventive medicine at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago.

这项研究周三发表在《沙巴体育平台点击进入》杂志上 美国心脏协会杂志, compared key heart health measures to Black and white women's scores on cognitive tests over 20 years. 认知测试评估处理速度和工作记忆.

心脏健康标准, developed by the 美国心脏协会 and known as Life's Essential 8, 包括重量, 血压, 血糖和胆固醇, 再加上健康饮食等行为, 积极锻炼身体, 不吸烟，睡眠充足.

Black women with good heart health showed little decline in mental processing during the study. 心脏健康状况较差的黑人女性, 尤其是在血压和吸烟方面, 在过去的20年里，处理速度下降了10%吗.

Processing speed is the pace at which the brain recognizes visual and verbal information. Working memory is the ability to remember and use small pieces of information for daily tasks, 包括记住别人的名字和做数学.

Previous research has linked heart health to a lower risk of cognitive decline, Janssen说, but questions remain about when the cognitive benefits of heart health begin, whether they occur among people of different races and whether they affect different types of brain function.

The study involved 363 Black and 402 white women from the Chicago site of the 全国妇女健康状况研究. 芝加哥SWAN小组于1997年开始进行认知测试, 当这些女性年龄在42到52岁之间时. 心脏健康仅在入组时进行评估, but cognitive testing continued every one to two years through 2017.

在研究中, processing speed did not decline among white women with poorer heart health, and heart health did not affect working memory for Black or white women.

"We were surprised that we did not find results like those of past studies, which showed cognitive decline in Black and white men and women (with poorer heart health), and found cardiovascular health to be more important for white adults rather than people in Black subgroups,杨森说. "We think these differences are due to the younger age of our participants, 谁在45岁左右开始认知测试, whereas previous studies started with adults about 10 to 20 years older."

作者承认这项研究存在一些局限性. 它只包括来自一个研究地点的女性, relied on self-reported measures of heart health and did not include measures that may account for racial differences in access to health care or the potential influence of structural racism on Black participants.

研究的下一步, Janssen说, would be a clinical trial to confirm whether optimizing heart health in Black women at midlife could slow cognitive aging, maximize independence and reduce racial inequities in dementia risk.

"Take care of your heart," she said, "and it will benefit your brain."