Abstract
Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is the most common neurodegenerative disorder in elderly people, but there are still no curative options. Senile plaques and neurofibrillary tangles are considered hallmarks of AD, but cerebrovascular pathology is also common. In this review, we summarize findings on cardiovascular disease (CVD) and risk factors in the etiology of AD. Firstly, we discuss the association of clinical CVD (such as stroke and heart disease) and AD. Secondly, we summarize the relation between imaging makers of pre-clinical vascular disease and AD. Lastly, we discuss the association of cardiovascular risk factors and AD. We discuss both established cardiovascular risk factors and emerging putative risk factors, which exert their effect partly via CVD.
Highlights
Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is the most common subtype of dementia, and has a large patient and societal burden
We provide an overview of the current knowledge on the relation between AD and clinical cardiovascular disease (CVD), imaging markers of pre-clinical CVD, and established and emerging cardiovascular risk factors (Table 1)
Pre-clinical markers of cerebral small vessel disease Abundant evidence shows that structural imaging markers of cerebral small vessel disease, such as lacunae and white matter lesions, are related to cognitive impairment or AD [15,16,17,48,49,50]
Summary
Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is the most common subtype of dementia, and has a large patient and societal burden. This hypothesis is corroborated by findings from the Cardiovascular Health Study, which showed that peripheral artery disease, another manifestation of atherosclerosis, was strongly associated with an increased risk of AD [32]. A Swedish study found that heart failure was related to an increased risk of dementia, including AD [37].
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