High blood pressure speeds up mental decline, but does not fully explain dementia disparities

 

 I live in a neighborhood where most of the people are immigrants from Mexico.  They tend to play their music very loud.  Research indicates this increases the risk of dementia.  My next post will be on that.

 

https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/966288

 

 News Release 28-Sep-2022
Long-term “study of studies” in Latino and non-Latino older adults shows clear hypertension link, but mystery still remains about why dementia risk is higher in those of Hispanic origin
Peer-Reviewed Publication
Michigan Medicine - University of Michigan

 

People with high blood pressure levels face a faster erosion of their ability to think, make decisions and remember information than those with normal blood pressure levels, a new study finds.

The researchers traced high blood pressure’s association with declining brain function over years, in data from six large studies that they pooled and analyzed. They show that blood pressure-related cognitive decline happens at the same pace in people of Hispanic heritage as in non-Hispanic white people.

The team had set out to see if differences in long-term blood pressure control explained why Hispanic people face a 50% higher overall risk of dementia by the end of their life than non-Hispanic white people in the United States.

But the new findings suggest that other factors may play a bigger role in that disparity.

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 “Our findings suggest that high blood pressure causes faster cognitive decline, and that taking hypertension medication slows the pace of that decline,” says Levine, a professor of internal medicine at the U-M’s academic medical center, Michigan Medicine.

“Since other studies have shown that people of Hispanic heritage in the United States tend to have higher rates of uncontrolled hypertension than non-Hispanic white people, due in part to worse access to care, it’s vital that they get extra support to control their blood pressure even if blood pressure is only part of the picture when it comes to their higher dementia risk,” she adds. “A risk factor like uncontrolled high blood pressure that is more prevalent in one group can still contribute to substantial health disparities.”

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