Heart bypass surgery increases risk of Alzheimer's disease - New research suggests

Heart bypass surgery increases risk of Alzheimer's disease - New research suggests
Heart bypass surgery increases risk of Alzheimer's disease - New research suggests
26 Aug 2005

Researchers say stress and trauma of surgery may be to blame Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) researchers have discovered that patients who have either coronary artery bypass graft surgery or coronary angioplasty are at an increased risk of developing Alzheimer's disease.

The research, which appears in the current issue of the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease (http://www.j-alz.com), pinpoints stress and trauma of the surgery as the major cause for the increased risk.

Led by Benjamin Wolozin, MD, PhD, professor of pharmacology at BUSM, researchers compared 5,216 people who underwent coronary artery bypass graft surgery (CABG) and 3,954 people who had a percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty (PTCA) in 1996 and 1997. Over the course of five years, 78 of the patients who had bypass surgery and 41 of those who had angioplasty developed Alzheimer's disease.