(Press-News.org) People with a high level of education who complain about memory lapses have a higher risk for stroke, according to new research in the American Heart Association journal Stroke.
"Studies have shown how stroke causes memory complaints," said Arfan Ikram, M.D., associate professor of neuroepidemiology at Erasmus University Rotterdam in The Netherlands. "Given the shared underlying vascular pathology, we posed the reverse question: 'Do memory complaints indicate an increased risk of strokes?'"
As part of the Rotterdam Study (1990-93 and 2000-01), 9,152 participants 55 or older completed a subjective memory complaints questionnaire and took the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE).
By 2012, 1,134 strokes occurred: 663 were ischemic, 99 hemorrhagic and 372 unspecified.
Subjective memory complaints was independently associated with a higher risk of stroke, but a higher MMSE score wasn't.
Furthermore, those with memory complaints had a 39 percent higher risk of stroke if they also had a higher level of education. The finding is comparable to the association between subjective memory complaints and Alzheimer's disease among highly educated people.
"Given the role of education in revealing subjective memory complaints, we investigated the same association but in three separate groups: low education, medium education and high education," Ikram said. "We found that the association of memory complaints with stroke was strongest among people with the highest education. If in future research we can confirm this, then I would like to assess whether people who complain about changes in their memory should be considered primary targets for further risk assessment and prevention of stroke."
Researchers categorized level of education into three groups: low education - primary education only; intermediate education - primary education plus some higher education, lower vocational education, intermediate vocational education, or general secondary education; and high education - higher vocational education or university training.
The study results apply evenly to men and women. With more than 95 percent of study participants being Caucasians living in Rotterdam, future studies should include more racially diverse groups, Ikram said.
INFORMATION:
A stroke occurs when a blood vessel that carries oxygen and nutrients to the brain is either blocked by a clot or bursts (or ruptures). When that happens, part of the brain cannot get the blood (and oxygen) it needs, so it and brain cells die. According to the American Stroke Association, about 795,000 Americans had a new or recurrent stroke each year. For more about stroke risk and prevention, visit strokeassociation.org.
Co-authors are Ayesha Sajjad, M.D.; Saira Saeed Mirza, M.D.; Marileen L.P. Portegies, M.D.; Michiel J. Bos, M.D., Ph.D.; Albert Hofman, M.D., Ph.D.; Peter J. Koudstaal, M.D., Ph.D.; and Henning Tiemeier, M.D., Ph.D. Author disclosures and funding information are on the manuscript.
Additional Resources
Researcher photo, stroke illustrations, and animation available on the right column of the release link http://newsroom.heart.org/news/memory-lapses-among-highly-educated-may-signal-higher-stroke-risk?preview=1ac3c272732b0dc918433606d42423ad
American Stroke Association
Simple techniques can help memory after stroke
Follow AHA/ASA news on Twitter @HeartNews.
For stroke science, follow the Stroke journal at @StrokeAHA_ASA.
Statements and conclusions of study authors published in American Heart Association scientific journals are solely those of the study authors and do not necessarily reflect the association's policy or position. The association makes no representation or guarantee as to their accuracy or reliability. The association receives funding primarily from individuals; foundations and corporations (including pharmaceutical, device manufacturers and other companies) also make donations and fund specific association programs and events. The association has strict policies to prevent these relationships from influencing the science content. Revenues from pharmaceutical and device corporations are available at http://www.heart.org/corporatefunding.
For Media Inquiries: (214) 706-1173
Maggie Francis: (214) 706-1392; maggie.francis@heart.org
Julie Del Barto (broadcast): (214) 706-1330; julie.delbarto@heart.org
For Public Inquiries: (800)-AHA-USA1 (242-8721)
heart.org and strokeassociation.org
Life is why we fund scientific breakthroughs that save and improve lives.
Children with public insurance waited longer after initial evaluation for sleep-disordered breathing (SDB) to undergo polysomnography (PSG, the gold standard diagnostic test) and also waited longer after PSG to have surgery to treat the condition with adenotonsillectomy (AT) compared with children who were privately insured, according to a report published online by JAMA Otolaryngology-Head & Neck Surgery.
Low socioeconomic status (SES) is a barrier to quality care and improved health outcomes. SDB is a spectrum of sleep disruption that ranges from snoring to obstructive ...
EAST LANSING, Mich. - It's well known that chemotherapy helps fight cancer. It's also known that it wreaks havoc on normal, healthy cells.
Michigan State University scientists are closer to discovering a possible way to boost healthy cell production in cancer patients as they receive chemotherapy. By adding thymine - a natural building block found in DNA - into normal cells, they found it stimulated gene production and caused them to multiply.
The study can be found online in the journal Molecular Cell.
"In most cases, cancer patients who receive chemotherapy lose ...
MADISON, Wis. -- Frederick Crane was a researcher under David E. Green in the mid-1950s, during the early days of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Enzyme Institute, when he made his defining discovery.
The lab group was on a mission to determine, bit by bit, how mitochondria -- the power plants of cells -- generate the energy required to sustain life. What Crane found, a compound called coenzyme Q, was a missing piece of the puzzle and became a major part of the legacy of mitochondrial research at UW-Madison. But it was no accident.
"It was the result of a long ...
Montréal, December 11, 2014 - Researchers in Montréal led by Jacques Drouin, D.Sc., uncovered a mechanism regulating dopamine levels in the brain by working on a mouse model of late onset Parkinson's disease. The study, conducted in collaboration with Dr. Rory A. Fisher from the Department of Pharmacology at the University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine, is published online today by the scientific journal PLoS Genetics.
Using gene expression profiling, a method to measure the activity of thousands of genes, researchers investigated dopaminergic neurons in ...
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - A new method that creates large-area patterns of three-dimensional nanoshapes from metal sheets represents a potential manufacturing system to inexpensively mass produce innovations such as "plasmonic metamaterials" for advanced technologies.
The metamaterials have engineered surfaces that contain features, patterns or elements on the scale of nanometers that enable unprecedented control of light and could bring innovations such as high-speed electronics, advanced sensors and solar cells.
The new method, called laser shock imprinting, creates shapes ...
A new study led by researchers at University of California, San Diego School of Medicine finds that the brains of obese children literally light up differently when tasting sugar.
Published online in International Journal of Obesity, the study does not show a causal relationship between sugar hypersensitivity and overeating but it does support the idea that the growing number of America's obese youth may have a heightened psychological reward response to food.
This elevated sense of "food reward" - which involves being motivated by food and deriving a good feeling ...
PORTLAND, Ore. -- A large international group of scientists, including an Oregon Health & Science University neuroscientist, is publishing this week the results of a first-ever look at the genome of dozens of common birds. The scientists' research tells the story of how modern birds evolved after the mass extinction that wiped out dinosaurs and almost everything else on Earth 66 million years ago, and gives new details on how birds came to have feathers, flight and song.
The consortium of more than 200 scientists is publishing its findings nearly simultaneously this week ...
A team of researchers led by North Carolina State University has found that stacking materials that are only one atom thick can create semiconductor junctions that transfer charge efficiently, regardless of whether the crystalline structure of the materials is mismatched - lowering the manufacturing cost for a wide variety of semiconductor devices such as solar cells, lasers and LEDs.
"This work demonstrates that by stacking multiple two-dimensional (2-D) materials in random ways we can create semiconductor junctions that are as functional as those with perfect alignment" ...
Agricultural decisions made by our ancestors more than 10,000 years ago could hold the key to food security in the future, according to new research by the University of Sheffield.
Scientists, looking at why the first arable farmers chose to domesticate some cereal crops and not others, studied those that originated in the Fertile Crescent, an arc of land in western Asia from the Mediterranean Sea to the Persian Gulf.
They grew wild versions of what are now staple foods like wheat and barley along with other grasses from the region to identify the traits that make some ...
GAINESVILLE, Fla. --- Nature abhors a vacuum, which may explain the findings of a new study showing that bird evolution exploded 65 million years ago when nearly everything else on earth -- dinosaurs included -- died out.
The study is part of an ambitious project, published in today's issue of the journal Science, in which hundreds of scientists worldwide have decoded the avian genome.
Edward Braun, an evolutionary geneticist at the University of Florida and the UF Genetics Institute, is one of the key scientists who took part in this multi-year project that used nine ...
