Higher serum nerve growth factor (NGF) levels in late midlife were associated with lower long-term risk of stroke and covert brain infarction in a prospective cohort study of 1709 stroke-free adults. The analysis, published in the Journal of the American Heart Association, included participants from the Framingham Heart Study Offspring and Omni 1 cohorts who attended examinations between 1998 and 2001 with available baseline serum NGF measurements.

Serum NGF was analyzed continuously and by tertiles. Primary endpoints were incident all-cause stroke and ischemic stroke. Secondary endpoints included covert brain infarction and white matter hyperintensity volume assessed by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Associations were evaluated using Cox proportional hazards models for stroke outcomes and linear and logistic regression models for imaging endpoints, adjusted for age, sex, and vascular risk factors.

The mean age was 60.6±9.6 years, and 47.6% were men. Over a median follow-up of 19.2 years (interquartile range 14.7-21.3), participants in the highest NGF tertile had a lower risk of all-cause stroke (hazard ratio [HR] 0.59; 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.37-0.94; p=0.03) and ischemic stroke (HR 0.50; 95% CI 0.27-0.77; p=0.003) versus the lowest tertile. Higher NGF was also associated with lower odds of covert brain infarction (odds ratio 0.57; 95% CI 0.34–0.97; p=0.04).

Higher serum NGF in late midlife was associated with a lower risk of incident stroke and covert brain infarction.