sAccording to a recent study, people with high blood pressure experience a faster decline in their capacity to reason, make choices, and recall information.
The researchers used data from six sizable studies, which they pooled and analyzed, to track the relationship between high blood pressure and deteriorating brain function over time. They demonstrate that people of Hispanic heritage experience cognitive decline brought on by high blood pressure at the same rate as non-Hispanic white people.
The team’s goal was to determine whether variations in long-term blood pressure management could account for why Hispanic people in the United States have a 50% greater overall risk of developing dementia by the end of their lives than non-Hispanic white people.
But the most recent research suggests that this difference might be caused by other things.
The lead author of the new study and the director of the University of Michigan’s Cognitive Health Services Research Program, Deborah Levine, M.D., M.P.H., says that despite this, the study’s publication in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease is a crucial reminder of the crucial part that blood pressure management plays in long-term brain health.
According to Levine, a professor of internal medicine at Michigan Medicine, the academic medical center for the University of Michigan, “our findings suggest that high blood pressure causes faster cognitive decline and that taking hypertension medication slows the pace of that decline.”
It’s crucial that they receive additional support to control their blood pressure, she continues, even though blood pressures is only one factor contributing to their higher risk of dementia. Other studies have shown that Americans of Hispanic heritage tend to have higher rates of uncontrolled hypertension than non-Hispanic white people, in part because of worse access to care. A risk factor that is more common in one group, such as uncontrolled high blood pressure, can still have a significant impact on health disparities.
Levine and her coworkers examined alterations in the thinking and memory skills of adults over 18 who participated in six lengthy studies carried out over the previous fifty years. They had access to each person’s data for an average of almost eight years, including their systolic blood pressure, which is the highest number in any blood pressure reading.
They were able to track blood pressure readings and changes on tests of memory, executive function, and cognitive performance in Hispanic and non-Hispanic white adults more clearly with the larger data set than they could with a single smaller data set.
The information was gathered from 2,475 Hispanic and 22,095 non-Hispanic white adults who had no history of dementia or stroke at the time of enrollment.Although Hispanic adults were older than non-Hispanic adults (62 versus 54), and blood pressure tends to rise with age, at enrollment, their average systolic blood pressure was lower (132.5 mmHg versus 134 mmHg) than non-Hispanic white adults.
Overall, high blood pressure had the same effect on both groups in terms of how well they could think and remember.
When Levine and his team only looked at the two studies that included people of Hispanic origin on purpose, they found that the Hispanic group lost general cognitive function faster than the non-Hispanic white group.
But the differences in cognitive decline could not be explained by differences in blood pressure between the groups. This could be because Hispanic participants in these studies had lower blood pressures than non-Hispanic white participants.
Levine points out that the studies incorporated information on educational years. The social determinants of health, such as income, education level, early life experiences, family factors, living situations, and more, were not fully revealed, which may be why Hispanic and non-Hispanic white people lose their cognitive abilities at different rates.
Members of the research team published their findings from a comparable analysis of data from black and white participants in some of the same studies two years ago. In that study, it was discovered that variations in blood pressure control over time contributed to the explanation of why black people experienced a faster decline in cognitive function.
Other aspects of cognitive decline disparities are currently being researched by Levine and colleagues at the University of Michigan Frankel Cardiovascular Center, including research on post-stroke cognitive declines conducted by her own team and the BASIC Cognition study conducted by Lewis Morgenstern, M.D., M.S. The risk of dementia after a stroke can increase fifty-fold, but it is not yet known how blood pressures and blood sugar levels can be managed to reduce the risk of dementia after a stroke.
The National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke is funding this research (R01 NS102715; PI, Levine D).
