The researchers used a test called infectious burden (IB) on blood samples from 1,625 participants in the multi-ethnic Northern Manhattan Study; the average age of participants was 69. IB measures exposure to three viruses (herpes simplex types 1 and 2 and cytomegalovirus) and two bacteria (Chlamydia pneumonia<\/em> and Helicobacter pylori<\/em>)<\/strong>.<\/p>\n The subjects were given a cognitive assessment, the Mini-Mental State Exam (MMSE). Those who had higher IB scores had a 25 percent higher risk of scoring more poorly on the MMSE.<\/p>\n \u201cThe link was strongest among women, those with lower socioeconomic status, and\u2014most notably\u2014those who did not exercise,<\/strong>\u201d said lead author Mira Katan, MD, postdoctoral fellow at the Neurological Institute at Columbia University Medical Center.<\/p>\n As the population ages, clinicians will have an ever greater need for ways to determine risk of cognitive loss. The link between elevated IB and cognitive loss could provide one such tool.<\/p>\n \u201cInfectious burden and cognitive decline\u201d was published in the March 26, 2013, print issue of Neurology<\/em>, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" From the Columbia University Medical Center press release via HealthCanal: Researchers at Columbia University Medical Center and collaborators at the Miller School of Medicine at the University of Miami found… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[10,6],"tags":[42,65],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11877"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11877"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11877\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11933,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11877\/revisions\/11933"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11877"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11877"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11877"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"mental](\"http:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/mental-health.jpg\")
<\/a>Researchers at Columbia University Medical Center and collaborators at the Miller School of Medicine at the University of Miami found that people with high levels of antibodies to five common infections in their blood, previously shown to be associated with increased risk of cardiovascular disease, also are associated with an increased risk of cognitive decline.<\/strong><\/p>\n