Moore, Elizabeth E.; Zhang, Panpan; Khan, Omair A.; Liu, Dandan; Gupta, Deepak K.; Pechman, Kimberly R.; Gifford, Katherine A.; Landman, Bennett A.; Hohman, Timothy J.; Jefferson, Angela L. (2026). . Alzheimer’s & Dementia, 22(8), e71598.
Cardiac output, the amount of blood the heart pumps each minute, may be related to brain health as people age. This study examined whether lower cardiac output was associated with changes in brain structure over 11 years in middle-aged and older adults. Researchers also investigated whether this relationship differed in people who carry the APOE-蔚4 genetic variant, which is associated with an increased risk of Alzheimer鈥檚 disease. Among APOE-蔚4 carriers, lower cardiac output was associated with smaller brain volumes at the beginning of the study. Over time, lower cardiac output was also associated with greater enlargement of the inferior lateral ventricles, fluid-filled spaces in the brain whose enlargement can indicate loss of surrounding brain tissue. These associations were not observed in people without the APOE-蔚4 variant. The findings suggest that subtle reductions in heart function may be associated with greater brain degeneration in APOE-蔚4 carriers. However, the results should be interpreted cautiously and confirmed in future studies.
FIGURE 1
Inclusion and exclusion criteria. Missing data categories are mutually exclusive