Intensive hypertension treatment reduces risk of cognitive impairment

  • A large clinical trial comparing the effects on cardiovascular disease of standard blood pressure control vs stricter control, has found that stricter control significantly reduced the risk of mild cognitive impairment.

A clinical trial involving 9361 older adults (50+) with hypertension but without diabetes or history of stroke has found that intensive control of blood pressure significantly reduced the risk of developing mild cognitive impairment.

While there was also a 15% reduction in dementia, this result did not reach statistical significance. This may have been due to the small number of new cases of dementia in the study groups.

Participants were randomly assigned to a systolic blood pressure goal of either less than 120 mm HG (intensive treatment) or less than 140 mm HG (standard treatment). They were then classified after five years as having no cognitive impairment, MCI or probable dementia.

The trial was stopped early due to its success in reducing cardiovascular disease. As a result, participants were on intensive blood pressure lowering treatment for a shorter period than originally planned. This impacted the number of cases of dementia occurring.

Hypertension affects more than half of Americans over age 50 and more than 75% of those older than 65.

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2019-01/wfbm-lbp012419.php

Reference: 

The SPRINT MIND Investigators for the SPRINT Research Group. (2019). Effect of Intensive vs Standard Blood Pressure Control on Probable Dementia: A Randomized Clinical Trial. JAMA, 321(6), 553–561.

 

Related News

A large study using data from the famous Framingham Heart Study has compared changes in dementia onset over the last three decades. The study found that over time the age of onset has increased while the length of time spent with dementia has decreased.

Data from more than 17,000 healthy people aged 50 and over has revealed that the more regularly participants engaged with word puzzles, the better they performed on tasks assessing attention, reasoning and memory.

Unplanned hospitalizations accelerate cognitive decline in older adults

Data from the Rush Memory and Aging Project has found that emergency and urgent hospitalizations are associated with an increased rate of cognitive decline in older adults.

A Finnish study involving 338 older adults (average age 66) has found that greater muscle strength is associated with better cognitive function.

Data from over 11,500 participants in the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) cohort has found evidence that orthostatic hypotension in middle age may increase the risk of cognitive impairment and dementia 20 years later.

A review of 39 studies investigating the effect of exercise on cognition in older adults (50+) confirms that physical exercise does indeed improve cognitive function in the over 50s, regardless of their cognitive status.

A Canadian study involving 40 older adults (59-81), none of whom were aware of any major memory problems, has found that those scoring below 26 on the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) dementia screening test also showed shrinking of the anterolateral

A study involving 35 adults with

In Australia, it has beens estimated that 9% of people aged over 65, and 30% of those aged over 85 have dementia. However, these estimates are largely based on older data from other countries, or small local samples.

In the past few months, several studies have come out showing the value of three different tests of people's sense of smell for improving the accuracy of

Pages

Subscribe to Latest newsSubscribe to Latest newsSubscribe to Latest health newsSubscribe to Latest news
Error | About memory

Error

The website encountered an unexpected error. Please try again later.