I read an article recently that said that controlling blood pressure is the best protection against dementia. That lead me to do a little research on the web, and numerous articles appeared. The bottom line: early detection and control of hypertension, along with good lifestyle habits, can help protect against cognitive decline.

Here’s what I learned:

• High blood pressure leads to vascular scarring, lesions in the blood vessels of the brain.
  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. The lesions are usually the result of damage to the small blood vessels in the brain. (Vancouver Sun article)

• Blood pressure readings of 140 over 90 or higher  that weaken arteries also seem to spur Alzheimer’s disease-like processes.  Scientists have long noticed that some of the same triggers for heart disease — high blood pressure, obesity, diabetes — seem to increase the risk of dementia, too. But for years, they thought that link was with “vascular dementia,” memory problems usually linked to small strokes, and not the scarier classic Alzheimer’s disease. Now those lines are blurring as specialists realize that many if not most patients have a mix of the two dementias. (AP article)

• Most of us don’t do much about our high blood pressure. Sylvia Wassertheil-Smoller of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York: “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.”
  

  Try losing weight and getting more exercise before you resort to medications to control your blood pressure.

• Another interesting article noted that LOW blood pressure (diastolic blood pressure below 70) raises the risk of dementia in the elderly, according to a study of people 75 or older. For each 10-point drop in pressure, the risk of dementia increases by 20 percent. Low pressures were only linked to an increased risk of Alzheimer’s type dementia, not the type that occurs as a result of blocked blood vessels in the brain. Participants in the study whose blood pressure was lowered through treatment for high blood pressure also demonstrated an increased risk for dementia.

• And according to a brief at Therapeutic Advances in Neurological Disorders, hypertension in midlife is particularly associated with an increased risk of developing dementia.

A healthy lifestyle has a multiplying effect on our ability to age gracefully, not just an additive effect. Do what it takes to control your blood pressure!

What are you doing to control your high blood pressure? Let us know what works for you. Best, Deborah