6/20/2007 - Treating heart disease risks may slow down Alzheimer's disease Treating risk factors for heart disease and stroke may help slow the progression of Alzheimer's disease, according to a study presented at the second Alzheimer’s Association International Conference on Prevention of Dementia. The study was a response to growing evidence that factors that increase the risk of vascular events also increase cognitive decline. For the study, researchers analyzed the medical records of 931 people with Alzheimer’s disease who attended a memory clinic for the first time between 1997 and 2003. These people also had vascular risk factors, such as high blood pressure, diabetes, high cholesterol and atherosclerosis. Researchers compared the rate of mental decline in people who received medicines for these vascular risks with the rate of decline in people who weren't treated. They found that people in the treatment group experienced about one-third less cognitive decline each year than those who didn't receive treatment. “That means the patients whose vascular risk factors were treated declined at a slower rate such that it took them three years to decline as much as untreated patients did after two years,” said investigator Yan Deschaintre, M.D., of the Centre Memoire, Hopital Roger Salengre, in Lille, France. Such a delay can have a significant effect, Dr. Deschaintre said, since the later stages of Alzheimer’s disease are the most severe. These findings also give people without Alzheimer’s some concrete actions they can take to reduce their risk for it, according to William Theis, Ph.D., vice president of Medical and Scientific Relations for the Alzheimer’s Association. “Research that identifies lifestyle risk factors gives people actions they can do and positive choices they can make to reduce their risk of Alzheimer’s, like lowering their blood pressure and treating their diabetes,” said Dr. Theis. Back