A new study from the American Heart Association is good news for Black women who maintain healthy heart habits.
Black women are one the highest groups susceptible to Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias, according to the National Institute on Aging. But a new study brings promising news for Black Americans.
The Journal of the American Heart Association has published a report that better heart health has been linked to less decline in mental processing speed and cognition among middle-aged Black women than those with worse heart health.
In the study, conducted by a team at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, researchers compared key heart health metrics such as weight and blood pressure (part of the American Heart Association's Life’s Essential 8), along with self-reported health behaviors such as eating healthily and being physically active, against cognitive testing in middle-aged Black and white women who were tested every one to two years over a 20-year period.
The cognitive tests assessed processing speed—the pace at which the brain accurately recognizes visual and verbal information necessary for daily activities such as driving—and working memory. Black women with good heart health showed little decline in mental processing during the 20-year study.
Black women with lower heart health, based on Life’s Essential 8 metrics, had a 10% decrease in processing speed over 20 years. Commencing in 1997, the study included 363 Black women who were then between the ages of 42 and 52 from the Chicago site of the Study of Women’s Health Across the Nation (SWAN).
“Take care of your heart, and it will benefit your brain" was the takeaway from the study's leading researchers. EBONY shares more advice on maintaining a healthy heart here.
