Having a heart attack can be directly associated with a drop in cognitive abilities, according to a Johns Hopkins Medicine study published May 30 in JAMA Neurology.
In the study of 30,465 people from six major studies of adults conducted between 1971 and 2019, researchers compared patients who suffered a heart attack with those who had not with respect to cognition.
The study showed that "there was a significantly faster decline in cognition over the years following the heart attack" and that the "decline in global cognition after a heart attack was equivalent to about six to 13 years of cognitive aging."
"Researchers used a point system to measure participants' global or overall cognition over time, as well as memory and executive functioning — or how well people make complex cognitive decisions," a Johns Hopkins news release said.
Significant cognitive decline following a heart attack does not begin immediately, but there is a "significant cognitive decline" as the person ages.
"We have shown that preventing heart attacks may be one strategy to preserve brain health in older adults," researcher Michelle Johansen, MD, PhD, associate professor of neurology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, said. "Now we need to determine what specifically is causing the cognitive decline over time."
The CDC reports 805,000 people in the United States have a heart attack each year and 200,000 of those are second heart attacks.