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While I'm on the topic of circulation problems...

August 30, 2005
Aging: Dementia Is Linked to Blood Flow to the Brain
By ERIC NAGOURNEY
Low blood flow to the brain may lead to dementia in older people, researchers are reporting today.

The findings, which appear in the journal Radiology, suggest that doctors may be able to reduce the risk of patients' developing dementia by monitoring how well blood is flowing to their brains and giving treatment if there is a problem, the researchers said.

Blood flow to the brain can be restricted by an array of problems, said Dr. Aart Spilt of the Leiden University Medical Center in the Netherlands, the lead author of the study.

High blood pressure is one: it can lead to stiffening and narrowing of the arteries. So, on the other hand, is low blood pressure, if the body is unable to compensate for the problem. Heart failure can also be a cause.

"Preventing this low blood flow seems important in reducing the risk of dementia," Dr. Spilt said in an e-mail message.

For the study, researchers made M.R.I. scans of the brains of 17 people over 75 who had dementia associated with Alzheimer's or Parkinson's diseases. They compared the results with brain scans of people the same age who had normal mental functioning, as well as scans from much younger people.

The incidence of both dementia and problems of the blood vessels in the brain increase significantly after age 70, the researchers said. The connection between the two problems, if any, has been harder to establish.

While it is possible that the dementia causes the decreased blood flow, and not the other way around, the researchers said their findings indicated that this was not the explanation.

"In our opinion," they wrote, "these observations strongly suggest that decreased cerebral blood flow indeed causes brain damage."

Yet another reason to put down the computer and do something active....