Ablation for A-fib reduces risk of dementia

  I can understand the risk of stroke, but I don't understand the connection between A-fib and the risk of Alzheimer's disease.

Cardiac Procedure Significantly Reduces Risk of Alzheimer's Disease and Stroke, Researchers Find
ScienceDaily (May 14, 2010)
"...patients with atrial fibrillation treated with catheter ablation are less likely to develop Alzheimer's disease or other forms of dementia, and have a significantly reduced risk of stroke and death compared to A-fib patients with who are not treated with ablation..."
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/05/100513123825.htm

[itdood]

Hi, I did a little research on this to see what's up.  This was a prospective study, which means a large group was followed over time.

The results could simply mean that those who chose ablation were healthier and younger to begin with, and thus didn't come down dementia.

The study found a correlation but can not conclude what the mechanism might be.

A more conclusive study would be to take a similar aged population of people in pA-FIB, then randomly separate them into groups of people who get ablation and those who do not, then see what happens in the next 10 years.  As you might imagine it would be quite difficult to force people into a certain treatment.  This type of study hasn't been done yet.

Take the meaning with a grain a salt.  I feel strongly that what you're seeing in the results is misleading.  A lot of the folks in the study who weere receving the ablations were in their 30s, yet the mean age of the study pop is 65.  This is skewing the conclusion.   The population of those getting ablation was much younger than those not getting ablation so we should expect that dementia rates would be lower.

This is why I am very cynical of prospective studies.