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Age and Ageing Advance Access published online on July 30, 2008
Age and Ageing, doi:10.1093/ageing/afn144
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Copyright © The Author 2008. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the British Geriatrics Society.

Vascular biomarkers of cognitive performance in a community-based elderly population: the Dublin Healthy Ageing study

Ai-Vyrn Chin1, David J. Robinson1, Henry O'Connell1, Fiona Hamilton1, Irene Bruce1, Robert Coen1, Bernard Walsh1, Davis Coakley1, Anne Molloy2, John Scott2, Brian A. Lawlor1 and Conal J. Cunningham1

1 Mercer's Institute for Research on Ageing, St. James's Hospital, Dublin 8, Ireland
2 School of Biochemistry and Immunology, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland

Address correspondence to: D. J. Robinson. Tel: (+353)-1-4162640. Email: davidjrobinson{at}iol.ie

Background: population studies suggest that cardiovascular risk factors may be associated with cognitive impairment. Epidemiological studies evaluating individual markers of vascular disease as risk factors for cognitive dysfunction have yielded inconsistent results. Homocysteine has emerged as a marker consistently associated with poorer outcomes. Existing studies have largely examined individual vascular risks in isolation and have tended to ignore patient psychological status.

Objective: to investigate the association between markers of vascular disease and cognition in a community-dwelling non-demented elderly population while adjusting for vascular and non-vascular confounds.

Design: cross-sectional community based assessment.

Participants: 466 subjects with mean age 75.45 (s.d., 6.06) years. 208 (44.6%) were male.

Results: higher levels of homocysteine were consistently associated with poorer performance in tests assessing visual memory and verbal recall. No other vascular biomarker was found to be associated with cognitive performance. Factors such as alcohol use, tea intake, life satisfaction, hypertension and smoking were positively correlated with global cognitive performance. Negative correlations existed between cognitive performance and depression, past history of stroke, intake of fruit and use of psychotropic medication.

Conclusions: homocysteine was the only vascular biomarker associated with poorer function in a number of domains on neuropsychological testing, independent of vascular and non-vascular confounds. Other psychosocial factors may need to be taken into account as potential confounds in future studies investigating cognition.

Keywords: epidemiology, vascular, cognition, elderly, homocysteine

Received 4 September 2007; accepted in revised form 13 March 2008.


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