Cardiovascular risk markers predicted the likelihood of cognitive impairment in a cohort of 988 people living with HIV from an observational study. The results appear similar to those found in dementia studies in the general population, but the effects on cognitive function occurred earlier in people living with HIV.
The study found that two of the factors included in the cardiovascular risk score—diabetes mellitus and high-density lipoproteins—were independently associated with lower cognitive function. Therefore, the effect of cardiovascular risk factors appears to be cumulative, the study authors suggested.
Twenty percent of the cohort consisted of women, and the study found that the association between cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk and cognitive impairment was particularly pronounced in women compared to men. The Atherosclerotic Cardiovascular Disease (ASCVD) risk score predicted cognitive function difficulties by a standard deviation of -2.17 for women and -0.78 for men. This sex difference, which is also observed in general population studies, may be related to the lower baseline risk of CVD in women or differences in vascular physiology, although the specific mechanism is unknown.
The average age of the study participants was 52 years. Most of them had high viral loads. undetectable , a fact that may prevent the results from being generalizable to all people living with HIV in the United States.
Our findings raise key questions about the observed associations between CV risk and cognitive function, including whether there is a critical relationship in which reducing CV risk can preserve mental health and prevent the decline in cognitive impairment of people living with HIV, they concluded.
thebodypro.com January 2020
Clinical Infectious Diseases , ciz1214, https://doi.org/10.1093/cid/ciz1214