People With Low Executive Function Test Scores May Be at Higher Risk for MI or Stroke

Immediately post-stroke my executive function was not working that well, Today it is probably even better than pre-stroke. Although the people tested here were pre MI or stroke. That just means our stroke associations should be sponsoring a study on this for survivors.
http://dgnews.docguide.com/people-low-executive-function-test-scores-may-be-higher-risk-mi?
People with low scores on a test of executive function may be at higher risk of a myocardial infarction (MI) or stroke, according to a study published in the August 5, 2015, online issue of the journal Neurology.
“These results show that heart and brain function are more closely related than appearances would suggest,” said Behnam Sabayan, MD, Leiden University Medical Center, Leiden, the Netherlands. “While these results might not have immediate clinical translation, they emphasise that assessment of cognitive function should be part of the evaluation of future cardiovascular risk.”
The study involved 3,926 people with an average age of 75 years and without a history of MIs or strokes. All of the people involved had either a history of heart disease or an increased risk of heart disease from high blood pressure, diabetes or smoking. The people were also free of dementia.
Four tests were used to evaluate the participants’ high-level thinking skills at the beginning of the study. The participants were then placed in groups of “low,” “medium,” and “high” based on the results. The participants were then followed for an average of 3 years to see who developed an MI or stroke. During that time, there were 375 MIs and 155 strokes, which is a rate of 31 MIs per 1,000 person-years and 12 strokes per 1,000 person-years.
People in the lowest group of executive function thinking skills were 85% more likely to have a MI than those in the highest group. A total of 176 of the 1,309 people with low scores had MIs, compared with 93 of the 1,308 people with high scores, which translates to a rate of 44 MIs per 1,000 person-years for people with low scores compared with 22 MIs per 1,000 person-years for people with high scores.
For strokes, people with low scores had a 51% higher risk of stroke. There were 69 strokes among those with those with low scores, compared with 48 strokes among those with high scores.
“Performance on tests of thinking and memory are a measure of brain health,” said Dr. Sabayan. “Lower scores on thinking tests indicate worse brain functioning. Worse brain functioning in particular in executive function could reflect disease of the brain vascular supply, which in turn would predict, as it did, a higher likelihood of stroke. And, since blood vessel disease in the brain is closely related to blood vessel disease in the heart, that’s why low test scores also predicted a greater risk of heart attacks. We acknowledge that even though the results were statistically significant, the risks were small.”
SOURCE: American Academy of Neurology