Researchers at Weill Cornell Medicine have found that people who suffer from a brain bleed are twice as likely to develop dementia later in life.
A brain bleed, also called an intracranial hemorrhage, happens when a blood vessel in the brain bursts. This causes blood to leak into brain tissue or under the skull, which can lead to serious problems.
Many people know that strokes caused by blocked blood flow (called ischemic strokes) are linked to memory problems and dementia. But this new study shows that brain bleeds may be just as important when it comes to future brain health.
The study was led by Dr. Samuel Bruce, a neurologist at Weill Cornell Medicine and NewYork-Presbyterian. His team looked at Medicare health records from 2008 to 2018. They studied nearly 15,000 people who had different types of brain bleeds that happened without any injury. These were not caused by accidents or falls but happened on their own.
They compared these people to over two million others who had no history of brain bleeds. The researchers found that those with a brain bleed were twice as likely to be diagnosed with dementia within about five and a half years.
This isn’t the first study to show a connection. In Denmark, a similar study found that more than 11% of people who had a brain bleed developed dementia—a much higher number than in the general population. By comparison, ischemic strokes raised the risk of dementia by about 1.7 times, while brain bleeds raised it by about 2.5 times in some studies.
Dr. Bruce said that the risk was higher no matter what kind of brain bleed a person had. This means that anyone who has had a brain bleed should be regularly checked for memory and thinking problems. Catching dementia early can help families and doctors make better care decisions.
But why does a brain bleed raise the risk of dementia? Dr. Santosh Murthy, another senior researcher on the team, explained that there could be several reasons. One idea is that brain bleeds might lead to the build-up of a harmful protein called amyloid beta. This protein is known to damage brain cells and is often seen in people with Alzheimer’s disease.
Another reason could be that the same health issues—like damage to blood vessels in the brain—might cause both bleeding and dementia. So the two conditions may be connected by common risk factors.
Dr. Murthy also said that doctors and researchers need to think about how safe Alzheimer’s treatments are for people who’ve had brain bleeds. Some of these treatments work by targeting amyloid beta, and brain bleeds could change how these treatments work or make them riskier.
As treatments for brain bleeds get better and people live longer after having one, it will be important to study how these bleeds affect different types of dementia. This could help doctors understand the disease better and find more ways to help patients in the future.
In summary, this study highlights an important warning: brain bleeds may play a bigger role in brain decline than we thought. Regular brain health checks should be part of the recovery plan for anyone who has experienced a brain bleed. More research will help uncover how these two serious conditions are connected and how best to treat them.
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The study is published in Stroke.
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