High blood pressure may increase dementia risk
According to the latest research, having elevated blood pressure as an older adult predicts an increase in one of the hallmarks of Alzheimer's disease. The study authors also saw an increased risk of brain lesions.
High blood pressure, or hypertension, is known to put pressure on the body, leading to disease.
Over the years, it has become increasingly clear that having higher-than-normal blood pressure for a sustained amount of time can impact the brain.
Causing impairments to memory, attention, and processing speed, hypertension has a key role in brain aging; it is also linked with dementia.
More than 100 million people in the United States have hypertension, and worldwide, it impacts almost a third of all adults.
Given the size of the affected population, understanding the risks associated with raised blood pressure is paramount.
Hypertension and the brain
Recently, researchers from the Rush Alzheimer's Disease Center at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, IL, set up a study to look for links between blood pressure and physical markers of brain health in older adults.
The findings are published this week in the journal Neurology. Study co-author Dr. Zoe Arvanitakis explains the types of pathology they were searching for.
"We researched whether blood pressure in later life was associated with signs of brain aging that include plaques and tangles linked to Alzheimer's disease."
They also looked for a type of brain lesion called an infarct. These are "areas of dead tissue caused by a blockage of the blood supply, which can increase with age, often go undetected, and can lead to stroke."
Included in the study were almost 1,300 people who were followed until their deaths, which was an average of 8 years from the beginning of the study. In total, two thirds of the group had a history of high blood pressure, and 87 percent were taking drugs to manage hypertension.
Each year, the participants had their blood pressure assessed, and, after death, their brains were autopsied. Almost half were found to have at least one infarct.
High blood pressure is considered to be anything above 140/90 millimeters of mercury (mmHg). The first number is known as systolic blood pressure, which measures pressure in the blood vessels as the heart contracts.
The second reading is diastolic blood pressure — that is, the pressure in the arteries when the heart is at rest between beats.
