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High Blood Pressure Predicts Memory Loss
– Reported, November 19 2013
(Ivanhoe Newswire) People in middle age who have high blood pressure known as pulse pressure are more likely to have biomarkers of Alzheimers disease in their spinal fluid than those with lower pulse pressure, according to new research at VA San Diego Healthcare System.
Pulse pressure is the systolic pressure, or the top number in a blood pressure reading, minus the diastolic, or the bottom number. Pulse pressure increases with age and is an index of the aging of the vascular system.
Researchers found that people who have higher pulse pressure are more likely to have the Alzheimers biomarkers amyloid beta, or plaques, and p-tau protein, or tangles, in their cerebral spinal fluid than those with lower pulse pressure. For every 10 point rise in pulse pressure, the average level of p-tau protein in the spinal fluid rose by 1.5 picograms per milliliter.
SOURCE: Neurology, November 2013