Link Between High Blood Pressure and Dementia in People Over 60: Study Finds Significant Risk

They reviewed the results of 17 different studies, all of which looked at a possible link between dementia and high blood pressure in people over the age of 60.

Several previous studies have shown a strong link between high blood pressure in middle age and a greater risk of developing vascular dementia later in life, which is caused by disruptions in the brain’s blood supply.

However, scientists have so far not been able to demonstrate the same strong correlation in the group of people over 60 years old, because the results are contradictory.

In the recent study, Australian researchers looked at data from 34,519 people without dementia from 16 countries.

The participants, who had an average age of 72.5 years at the start of the study, were divided into three categories:

A group of healthy participants, a group treated for high blood pressure and a group with untreated high blood pressure.

Researchers: ‘Important to treat.’

Analyzes of the extensive data showed that participants with untreated high blood pressure were found to have a 42 percent higher risk of dementia than the healthy control group.

When the researchers compared them with the group of participants who had been treated for their high blood pressure, the increased risk was 26 percent.

According to the scientists themselves, one of the limitations of the study is that the definition of high blood pressure has changed over time and varies per country.

The researchers themselves also point out that the methods used to diagnose dementia differed and that some participants developed dementia so soon after the start of the study that they may have previously had undetected dementia.

Yet their conclusion is clear:

“Our study provides the strongest data to date on the importance of treating elevated blood pressure, even later in life,” they write in the study, published in the scientific journal Jama Network Open.