Cardiovascular diseases and Alzheimer's disease: A potential relationship

The study of the relationship between cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) and Alzheimer’s disease (AD) can be complicated. The diagnostic criteria of AD usually exclude patients with any clinical CVD (the combination of CVD and dementia leading more strongly towards a diagnosis of multi-infarction dementia rather than in AD). Nevertheless, there is strong evidence supporting the notion that CVDs contributes at least to the onset of AD, as demonstrated by numerous autopsy studies. The incidence of microvascular ischemic episodes has been found to strongly correlate with Dementia. Nevertheless, it is not clear whether this association is due to the fact that they share common risk factors or if the CVDs are directly or indirectly involved in the pathogenesis leading to AD. Understanding the etiology of one of these diseases can lead to understanding the onset, progression and treatment of the other. *Correspondence to: Effrosyni Koutsouraki, 1stDepartment of Neurology, Medical School, Aristotle University, AHEPA Hospital, St. Kyriakidi 1, Thessaloniki, Greece, E-mail: efrosink@gmail.com