Cardiovascular disease risk is associated with middle cerebral artery blood flow velocity in older adults.
Sophy J Perdomo, Jaimie Ward, Yumei Liu and 5 others
PMID 33100924WHAT IT FOUND
Older adults with higher cardiovascular disease risk had lower middle cerebral artery blood flow velocity at rest and during exercise.
Their cardiovascular risk was also linked to more white matter lesions, but blood flow velocity was not.
Key findings
01Participants with elevated ASCVD risk had lower resting MCAv (53.95 cm/s low risk vs 44.79 cm/s elevated risk) and lower exercise MCAv (62.12 cm/s low risk vs 50.43 cm/s elevated risk).
02Resting and exercise MCAv were not associated with white matter lesion volume, but each unit increase in ASCVD risk was associated with 0.10 mL more white matter lesion volume.
03Higher resting and exercise MCAv were associated with higher language processing scores, not with executive function, memory, processing speed, or attention.
STILL TO COME
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What it does not show
The paper reports associations, not causal effects. Only 72 of 85 enrolled participants had complete data, and the analysed sample was small and narrow: 100% white non-Hispanic, 69% female, mean age 70.0 years, and all physically inactive. Only 2 participants had diabetes, so the diabetes finding cannot be treated as a general result. Blood flow velocity was measured with transcranial Doppler, which is an indirect measure of cerebral blood flow and does not account for vessel diameter. Cholesterol values were collected 1 to 2 months before the experimental session, not at the same visit, which could affect the ASCVD score. The cognitive battery changed during the study, so memory was assessed with only the Free and Cued Selective Reminding Test and the full battery was not uniform. The reported relationships explained only a small amount of variability. Nine participants were taking beta blockers and 8 were taking calcium channel blockers, and the paper does not report whether this affected the results.
Declared interests
The supplied text does not include a funding or conflict-of-interest declaration.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that cardiovascular risk causes lower brain blood flow velocity or poorer language. The paper reports associations, not a tested intervention, and the diabetes subgroup contained only 2 participants.