<http://schema.org/articleBody>
" People who possess poor thinking skills - including planning, problem-solving and reasoning - are at greater risk of heart attack and stroke, according to a new study. A heart attack occurs when the supply of blood to the heart is blocked, typically by a blood clot. The British Heart Foundation estimates that around 50,000 men and 32,000 women have a heart attack each year in England. A stroke, on the other hand, is a condition where the blood supply to part of the brain is cut off. NHS figures show that each year, around 110,000 people have a stroke in England. Key risk factors for heart attack and stroke include obesity, smoking, high blood pressure and high cholesterol. However, there has been little research into the effects of cognitive functioning. A team of researchers from Leiden University Medical Center in the Netherlands, therefore, set out to investigate the relationship between cognitive function and risk of cardiovascular problems, such as heart attack and stroke. For the study, they recruited 3,926 people with an average age of 75. No participants had a history of heart attack, stroke or dementia. However, they did have either a history of heart disease or diabetes, high blood pressure or tobacco use (three risk factors for heart disease). Over a three-year period, the participants took part in four tests that assessed their executive function. They were then assigned to one of three groups depending on whether they scored low, medium or high in the tests. During the follow-up, the researchers recorded 375 heart attacks and 155 strokes. It was found that those with low scores on the cognitive tests had an 85 per cent greater risk of heart attack and a 51 per cent greater risk of stroke than those who had high test scores. Benham Sabayan, lead researcher of the study, said: &amp;#039;Performance on tests of thinking and memory are a measure of brain health. Lower scores on thinking tests indicate worse brain functioning. &amp;#039;Worse brain functioning - in particular, in executive function - could reflect disease of the brain vascular supply, which in turn would predict, as it did, a higher likelihood of stroke. And, since blood vessel disease in the brain is closely related to blood vessel disease in the heart, that&amp;#039;s why low test scores also predicted a greater risk of heart attacks.&amp;#039; The study has been published in the journal Neurology. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.netdoctor.co.uk/healthy-living/news/a25699/poor-thinkers-at-risk-of-heart-attack/>