How would your doctor even know if this is happening to you? While
INR testing does not necessarily require fasting anymore, I'm sure frequent blood draws for this would not be covered by insurance. Unless the
needle free blood draws come into practice soon.
http://www.alphagalileo.org/ViewItem.aspx?ItemId=166067&CultureCode=en
Greater fluctuations in “bad” cholesterol levels may be linked to
worse cognitive function in elderly adults, according to new research in
the American Heart Association’s journal Circulation.
In a study of European adults age 70 to 82 years old, researchers
found that greater fluctuations in low-density lipoprotein cholesterol
(LDL), or “bad” cholesterol, are associated with lower cognitive
performance.
For example, study participants with the highest LDL cholesterol
variability took 2.7 seconds longer on average to finish a cognitive
test to name ink colors of color words written in different ink (for
example, the word blue written in red ink), compared to individuals with
the lowest variability.
“While this might seem like a small effect, it is significant at a
population level,” said Roelof Smit, M.D., lead study author and a Ph.D.
student at Leiden University Medical Center in Leiden, the Netherlands.
The link between variability and declining cognitive function was
found regardless of average bad cholesterol levels or use of
cholesterol-lowering statin drugs.
In addition, greater fluctuations in bad cholesterol were associated
with lower brain blood flow and greater white matter hyperintensity load
- which has been linked to endothelialdysfunction.
These results show LDL cholesterol variability may be important to neurocognitive function, Smit said.
“Our findings suggest for the first time that it’s not just the
average level of your LDL-cholesterol that is related to brain health,
but also how much your levels vary from one measurement to another,”
Smit said.
Measurements fluctuate because of diet, exercise, frequency of
cholesterol-lowering statins and other factors, he said. However, these
fluctuations might also reflect an increasingly impaired homeostasis;
for example, due to age or underlying disease, added J.Wouter Jukema,
M.D., Ph.D., senior author of the study and professor of Cardiology at
the Leiden University Medical Center.
The research involved 4,428 participants from Scotland, Ireland and
the Netherlands in the PROspective Study of Pravastatin in the Elderly
at Risk. PROSPER participants either had preexisting vascular disease or
were at a higher risk for developing the condition because of histories
of hypertension, cigarette smoking or diabetes.
Researchers examined associations between LDL cholesterol variability
and four cognitive measures: color-word test for selective attention,
letter-digit coding to assess information processing speed and
picture-word learning to test verbal memory in two ways – immediate
recall and delayed recall after 20 minutes.
Although the research population was European, the results may be
applicable to Americans as their lifestyle patterns predispose them to
the same set of clinical outcomes, Smit said. But the
results cannot be
extrapolated directly to the general U.S. population because the study
participants were older adults at high risk for vascular disease.
“These results add an important puzzle piece to the emerging evidence
that vascular risk factors are closely related to brain health,” Smit
said. “Our study is just the first exciting step. Further studies are
needed to examine whether these findings could truly influence clinical
practice.”
http://newsroom.heart.org/news/fluctuations-in-bad-cholesterol-may-be-linked-to-worse-brain-health?preview=c778cef4bfb05954aef5021158d0a591
