Memory deterioration can be prevented as you aged

Emobileclinic Researchers’ corner

Emobileclinic reporter: Dr. Tomi Orugbe

 Aging is associated with memory reduction and behavioral changes which are mostly controlled by the brain. A recent study says you can use a stone to kill two birds. Experts insist when you take care of your heart, you will see the benefits in the brain. In trying to prevent death resulting from cardiovascular disease and stroke, the American Heart Association (AHA) comes with 7 point agenda to reduce death in this regard by 20% in 2020. The good thing is that these 7 factors will also help you to age beautifully with your brain and memory immune against declination .

The 7 cardiovascular health (CVH) factors are controls over: smoking, body mass index, physical activity, diet, blood pressure, cholesterol, and glucose.
The researchers noticed that people with at least 3 factors did not experience memory reduction. According to the lead author, ” increasing number of ideal CVH factors was associated with better processing speed at initial assessment and less decline.” He equally noticed that some of these factors give more results than the other.For instance, factors like the non smoking and glucose are positively associated with better cognitive performance at their initial assessment . This relationship and association also ”were observed between the number of ideal CVH factors and less decline in the domains of Executive Function and Episodic Memory,” says Hannah Gardener, ScD, Department of Neurology, Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami. 

The research with the population study of 722 was a multi ethnicity study dominated by the Hispanics as well as other races are; blacks and whites, of age 72±8 years. All were men. Out of this population, 3% had 0 factors, while the rest had between 1 – 6 factors,non had 7 factors. ”The association was strongest for 3 of the CVH factors in particular―ideal BMI, lack of smoking, and ideal fasting glucose, which were all associated with greater processing speed performance at the initial assessment compared with those with less‐than‐ideal health for these factors after mutual adjustment ,” says the lead researcher.
The results as published in Journal of the American Heart Association shows the achievement of the AHA’s ideal CVH metrics and the benefits to the brain. ”In addition to preventing strokes and myocardial infarctions, even among elderly individuals, underscoring the importance of public health initiatives aimed to better control these 7 factors” were part of the study accomplishments the author concluded.