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CE: Original Research: Midlife Hypertension and Hypercholesterolemia in Relation to Cognitive Function Later in Life
Elizabeth Devore1, Kathryn E Hall, Eva S Schernhammer
1Elizabeth Devore is an associate epidemiologist and an instructor in medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston. Kathryn E. Hall is the nurse director of the Translational and Clinical Research Centers, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston. Eva S. Schernhammer is a professor and the chair of epidemiology at Medizinische Universitat Wien, Wien, Austria. Francine Grodstein is a professor of epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and a professor of medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, both in Boston. This research was supported by funding from the American Heart Association National Clinical Research Program (grant number 12CRP8800006), the Brigham and Women's Hospital Biomedical Research Institute, and the National Cancer Institute at the National Institutes of Health (grant number UM1 CA186107). Devore has also received consulting fees from Epi Excellence LLC and Bohn Epidemiology LLC. Contact author: Elizabeth Devore, nheed@channing.harvard.edu. The authors and planners have disclosed no potential conflicts of interest, financial or otherwise.
: Purpose: This study sought to evaluate midlife hypertension and hypercholesterolemia in relation to cognitive function later in life among black women.
: Purpose: This study sought to evaluate midlife hypertension and hypercholesterolemia in relation to cognitive function later in life among black women.
Methods:
Participants were drawn from the Nurses' Health Study and the Women's Health Study databases. In these studies, health professionals reported health information by questionnaire at baseline and at regular follow-up intervals, including diagnoses of hypertension, hypercholesterolemia, or both; and they completed telephone-based cognitive assessments later in life. Multivariable-adjusted linear regression models were used to estimate mean differences in global cognition and executive function scores, comparing women with and without a history of hypertension at midlife and women with and without a history of hypercholesterolemia at midlife.
Results:
Data for 363 black female health professionals were analyzed. Those with a history of hypertension or hypercholesterolemia at midlife did not have lower global cognition and executive function scores later in life compared with those without such a history, although there were trends in this direction.
Conclusion:
In the study sample, a history of hypertension or hypercholesterolemia at midlife was not related to worse cognitive function in later life. But there was a suggestive pattern of trends that warrants further exploration in larger studies.
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