STOCKHOLM (Dispatches) -- In a new study at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden, scientists found that having an elevated resting heart rate in old age may be an independent risk factor of dementia.
Researchers believe that the resting heart rate is easy to measure and can be lowered through exercise or medical treatment, it may help to identify people with higher dementia risk for early intervention.
In a 12 year follow up, the participants showed that individuals with a resting heart rate of 80 beats per minute or higher on average had 55 percent higher risk of dementia than those with a heart rate of 60-69 beats per minute. The association remained significant after adjusting for potential confounders such as various cardiovascular diseases. Still, the researchers caution that the result may have been affected by undetected cardiovascular events and the fact that more participants with cardiovascular disease died during the follow-up period and thus didn’t have time to develop dementia.
According to the organization Alzheimer’s Disease International, the number of people living with dementia is expected to increase to 139 million globally by 2050, from 55 million in 2020.
Right now, there is no cure for dementia, but growing evidence suggests that maintaining a healthy lifestyle and cardiovascular health could help delay the onset of dementia and ease symptoms.