High blood pressure linked to dementia: Study
Reported February 08, 2010
Experts are calling for an increased emphasis on health promotion as studies draw links between high blood pressure and dementia.
The Women’s Health Initiative Memory study of 1,403 participants, published in the Dec. 2009 online issue of the Journal of Clinical Hypertension, is the most recent report of its kind. It determined that people with hypertension (elevated blood pressure) developed significant amounts of white matter lesions over the eight years of the study.
Such lesions, usually the result of damage to the small blood vessels in the brain, are a risk factor for dementia.
Hypertension is a major risk factor “not just for classical strokes, but also for mini mini-strokes,” says Dr. Frans Leenen, director of the hypertension unit at the University of Ottawa Heart Institute. “A mini-stroke on its own doesn’t do much, but several together over the years, each closing tiny blood vessels in the brain, cause progressive changes in personality, mood and cognition, ultimately leading to a form of dementia called vascular dementia.”
Hypertension is a growing concern in many age groups, including younger adults. According to the annual report of the Heart and Stroke Foundation released in January, rates of high blood pressure among all Canadians rose 77 per cent between 1994 and 2005. In adults from age 35 to 49, the prevalence of high blood pressure soared by 127 per cent. Leenen says between 60 and 70 per cent of people over 60 have high blood pressure.
Sylvia Wassertheil-Smoller of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, a lead researcher on the WHIM study, says although “we don’t know whether hypertension treatment will prevent white matter lesions from developing, we do have suggestive evidence that the progression of these brain lesions can be slowed by anti-hypertensive therapy.
“The bottom line is that we don’t know how to prevent dementia, but controlling blood pressure is one way, probably the only way at the moment. We know how to control hypertension. Yet the majority of people who have it don’t do anything about it.”
“The important message,” says Dr. Christopher Patterson, chief of geriatric services at Hamilton Health Sciences, “is that this is just another good reason for making sure your blood pressure is treated and that you live a healthy lifestyle. Risk factors such as high blood pressure, being overweight and having a sedentary lifestyle are not additive. They multiply. The key is a healthy lifestyle.”
Dr. Howard Bergman, scientific director of the Fonds de la recherche en sante du Quebec and chair of a provincial task force on Alzheimer’s disease, strongly advocates individual health promotion to protect against the devastating impact of cognitive decline.
“If you want to protect against Alzheimer’s disease,” says Bergman, “you are really talking about all the lifestyle issues: not smoking, not drinking too much, nutrition, protecting your head from brain injuries and the early detection and control of hypertension and diabetes.
Source : Canwest News Service
