Heart Health And Alzheimer's Disease: Certain Health Factors Increase Early Mortality Risk

Statistics show that Alzheimer's disease is the sixth leading cause of death in the United States, according to the Alzheimer's Association. An estimated 5.3 million Americans of all ages have Alzheimer's disease, based on information from 2015 and every 67 seconds, someone in the United States develops the disease.

New research published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society examine certain factors that can increase mortality risk in an individual with Alzheimer's disease--the most common form of dementia.

Researchers reviewed 12 studies that included more than 235,000 people with dementia. Findings revealed that dementia patients who also had diabetes had a higher overall mortality risk than those with just dementia; the same was true of dementia patients who smoked or who had coronary heart disease.

However, rather surprisingly, researchers found that being overweight, having high blood pressure or having high cholesterol did not seem to increase the risk of death in dementia patients.

With future studies, researchers may examine information on how high cholesterol is treated--along with high blood pressure in dementia patients, as these do not seem to have much to do with a higher death risk.

The study states that, "Decisions about treating people with dementia for those conditions should be based on an older person's preferences and whether the treatment will improve quality of life, while also weighing the risks and benefits of treatment, noted the researchers."

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