ArticleJournal of Alzheimer's disease : JAD2021
Do Cardiovascular Risk Factors and Cardiovascular Disease Explain Sex Differences in Cognitive Functioning in Old Age?
Article in Journal of Alzheimer's disease : JAD, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 5 papers.
What it found
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Who cites it
5 citing papers in PubMed, 16 citations in OpenAlex.
- Sex differences in cognitive performance persist into your 80s.GeroScience · 2025Article
- No sex differences in the association between regional brain structure abnormalities and cognitive functioning in a geriatric memory clinic population.Aging brain · 2025Article
- Associations of the Lipidome with Ageing, Cognitive Decline and Exercise Behaviours.Metabolites · 2022Review
- Sex differences and modifiable dementia risk factors synergistically influence memory over the adult lifespan.Alzheimer's & dementia (Amsterdam, Netherlands) · 2022Article
- The Relative Importance of Vascular Risk Factors on Early Cognitive Aging Varies Only Slightly Between Men and Women.Frontiers in aging neuroscience · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
8 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundSex differences in cognitive functioning in old age are known to exist yet are still poorly understood.
objectiveThis study examines to what extent differences in cardiovascular risk factors and cardiovascular disease between men and women explain sex differences in cognitive functioning.
methodsData from 2,724 older adults from the Longitudinal Aging Study Amsterdam were used. Information processing speed and episodic memory, measured three times during six years of follow-up, served as outcomes. The mediating role of cardiovascular risk factors and cardiovascular disease was examined in single and multiple mediator models. Determinant-mediator effects were estimated using linear or logistic regression, and determinant-outcome and mediator-outcome effects were estimated using linear mixed models. Indirect effects were estimated using the product-of-coefficients estimator.
resultsWomen scored 1.58 points higher on information processing speed and 1.53 points higher on episodic memory. Several cardiovascular risk factors had small mediating effects. The sex difference in information processing speed was mediated by smoking, depressive symptoms, obesity, and systolic blood pressure. The sex difference in episodic memory was mediated by smoking, physical activity, and depressive symptoms. Effects of smoking, LDL cholesterol, and diabetes mellitus on information processing speed differed between men and women.
conclusionDifferences in cardiovascular risk factors between women and men partially explained why women had better cognitive functioning. A healthy cardiovascular lifestyle seems beneficial for cognition and sex-specific strategies may be important to preserve cognitive functioning at older age.
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