High changes in blood pressure in old age may be an indicator for higher dementia risk

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2023-10-31 02:00

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There are high chances that having varied blood pressure at 90 years of age may be an indicator of a higher risk of developing dementia, according to international researchers, but the same cannot be said for younger people. The team studied 820 people in the US aged 65 or older with blood pressure data from mid-to-late life. They found that people with high blood pressure variability (BPV) - that is changes in blood pressure - indicated an increased lifetime dementia risk in late life but not in midlife. The nature of the study means researchers were unable to determine if the high BPV was causing an increase in dementia risk, if the reverse is true and brain deterioration might be causing the high BPV, or if higher BPV is simply a marker of advanced biological age and therefore associated with dementia.

Media release

From: JAMA

About The Study: High blood pressure variability indicated increased lifetime dementia risk in late life but not in midlife in this study that included 820 adults monitored for an average time of 32 years. This result suggests that high blood pressure variability may indicate increased dementia risk in older age but might be less viable as a midlife dementia prevention target.

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Research JAMA, Web page URL will go live after the embargo lifts

Journal/
conference: JAMA Network Open

Research:Paper

Organisation/s: Radboud University Medical Center, the Netherlands

Funder: This research was funded by VIDI grant 91718303 from ZonMw (Dr Richard). The Adult Changes in Thought (ACT) study was funded by grants U19AG066567 and U01AG006781 from the NIA.

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