NEW YORK (Dispatches) -- An extended study has found that Structural or functional abnormalities within the heart’s left atrium, with or without symptoms, may increase a person’s risk of developing dementia later in life by 35%.
Michelle C. Johansen, M.D., Ph.D., an assistant professor of neurology at The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, and the research team studied to determine the relationship between atrial cardiopathy and dementia, and if so, whether it was independent of atrial fibrillation and stroke.
The large, diverse study of over 5,000 older adults in the U.S. showed that abnormal size or functioning in the left atrium (one of the two upper heart chambers), even before symptoms are present, may play a role in the development of dementia. The abnormalities, called atrial cardiopathy, appeared to increase participants’ risk of developing dementia by 35%.
The left atrium is one of four chambers of the heart and is responsible for receiving blood from the lungs and pumping it into the left ventricle, which then pumps the blood to the rest of the body. An abnormality in the structure or functioning of the left atrium, known as atrial cardiopathy, can often serve as a biomarker, or predictor, of a person’s cardiac risk.