Month: April 2014

Artery stiffness may increase the odds of developing dementia, a new study suggests. People are more likely to develop both stiff blood vessels and dementia as they grow older. The new study looked at links between these conditions in 81 adults. All were age 83 or older. They did not have dementia when the study began. Researchers gave them positron emission tomography (PET) scans of the brain. They also estimated artery stiffness by measuring how fast blood moves through the body. They repeated the tests 2 years later. At the beginning, 48% of those in the study had beta amyloid plaques in the brain. Larger amounts of beta amyloid are linked with Alzheimer’s disease. Two years later, 75% had amyloid deposits. People with stiffer arteries were more likely to have these deposits. The journal JAMA Neurology published the study. HealthDay News wrote about it March 31.