Keeping Blood Pressure Low Reduces Alzheimer’s And Dementia Risk
by Richard Kuehn on 11/03/22
Scientists know that having high blood pressure,
particularly between the ages of 40 and 65, increases the risk of developing
dementia later in life. Until now, it
was not clear whether monitoring your blood pressure at home and then getting
on meds to control it if it is high was helpful in reducing dementia in older
adults.
"What is so exciting about our study is
that the data shows that those people who were taking the blood pressure
lowering medication had a lower risk of a dementia diagnosis than those taking
a matching placebo," said Ruth Peters, an associate professor at the
University of New South Wales in Australia, who is also a senior research
scientist at Neuroscience Research Australia, a nonprofit research organization,
told KSBW News.
The new study, which was published recently in
the European Heart Journal, looked at 28,000 older adults (with an average age
of 69) who all had a history of hypertension.
It found that a drop of about 10 mm/HG on the systolic and 4 mm/HG on
the diastolic blood pressure reading at 12 months significantly lowered the
risk of a dementia diagnosis.
In addition, as blood pressure dropped, so did
cognitive risk, which held true to at least 100 mm/HG systolic and 70 mm/HG diastolic. When sex, age or history of stroke were taken
into account, there was no difference in outcome.
