Better cardiovascular scores linked to better cognition

INDIANAPOLIS — Measures of cardiovascular health, which include sleep, were found to be associated with cognitive performance in middle-aged and older adults, according to research presented at SLEEP 2023.

Sleep was recently added to the American Heart Association’s Life’s Simple 7, making it Life’s Essential 8 (LE8), Yuqi Shen, a graduate student in biobehavioral health in Penn State University’s College of Health and Human Development, said in her presentation.

The “key measures for improving and maintaining cardiovascular health,” as the AHA says on its website, include five modifiable behaviors (not smoking, healthy weight, healthy sleep, eating healthy and being physically active) and three biometric measures (blood pressure, cholesterol and blood sugar).

Shen and colleagues sought to determine the relationship between LE8 composite score and cognition by evaluating data from 1,498 adults (between 36 and 76 years old, 41% male, 61% African American) from the Healthy Aging in Neighborhoods of Diversity Across the Life Span (HANDLS) study who completed the LE8 and global cognition measurements.

She said they scored the sleep component using a question from the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index: During the past month, how many hours of actual sleep did you get at night? They used the Joggle Research Battery as a measurement of cognitive performance.

“Patients got an iPad and completed a set of game-like experiences,” Shen said. “It tests speech, memory, attention and executive function.”

The researchers found that a higher LE8 score was associated with better memory and attention, Shen said, with “a .0011 increase in memory composite score and 0.012 with attention composite score. However, higher LE8 score is not associated with speed, executive function or visual orientation.”

She said they concluded that a higher LE8 sore is associated with better global cognitive performance.

“Exploring relationships over time with longitudinal design and associated patterns across diverse groups should be studied,” Shen said. “And objective sleep measurements and traditional paper and pencil in the neuropsychologically psychometric cognitive assessment should be used.”

Reference:

• Life’s Essential 8. https://www.heart.org/en/healthy-living/healthy-lifestyle/lifes-essential-8. Published May 2022. Accessed June 6, 2023.