Association of Life's Simple 7 with incident dementia and its modification by the apolipoprotein E genotype

Introduction There is limited and inconsistent reporting on the association between Life's Simple 7 (LS7) and dementia in the elderly population. Methods Based on the Washington Heights-Inwood Columbia Aging Project (WHICAP), LS7 scores were estimated to assess cardiovascular health status. Associations between LS7 scores and incident dementia were investigated by Cox proportional hazards models. Results Among 1987 subjects, 291 incident cases of dementia were identified over a median follow-up of 5.84 years. Compared with subjects in the poor cardiovascular health group (scores 0 to 5), those in intermediate (6 to 9) and optimal (10 to 14) groups had lower dementia risk, with the hazard ratio (HR; 95% confidence interval) being 0.74 (0.54 to 1.00) and 0.59 (0.38 to 0.91), respectively. These results were significant in apolipoprotein E genotype epsilon 4 (APOE epsilon 4) allele non-carriers but not in carriers. Discussion Higher LS7 scores are protective for dementia, especially among the APOE epsilon 4 noncarriers.

Automated summary

There is a protective effect of higher LS7 scores against dementia in the elderly population, especially among APOE ε4 non-carriers.