Posted on 08/20/2024 8:00:40 PM PDT by ConservativeMind
People 60 and older with untreated high blood pressure may have an increased risk of Alzheimer's disease compared to both people who have been or are being treated for high blood pressure as well as people without the chronic condition.
The new research, a meta-analysis, do not prove that untreated high blood pressure causes Alzheimer's disease, they only show an association.
"High blood pressure is a leading cause of stroke and cerebrovascular disease, and yet it can be controlled with medication, reducing a person's risk of these diseases," said Matthew J. Lennon, MD, Ph.D.
"Taking blood pressure medications has also been found in previous research to reduce a person's risk of dementias overall, but less is known about how blood pressure affects a person's risk of Alzheimer's disease. Our meta-analysis looked at older people and found that not treating blood pressure may indeed increase a person's risk."
For the meta-analysis, researchers looked at 31,250 people with an average age of 72 who were enrolled in 14 studies that measured cognitive change and dementia diagnosis over time.
For each participant, researchers looked at blood pressure measurements, high blood pressure diagnosis and the use of blood pressure medication. They found 9% had untreated high blood pressure, 51% were taking blood pressure medications, 36% did not have high blood pressure and 4% were noted as uncertain.
After adjusting for factors, researchers found people with untreated high blood pressure had a 36% increased risk of Alzheimer's disease when compared to people without high blood pressure, and a 42% increased risk of Alzheimer's when compared to people with the condition who were taking blood pressure medications.
Said Lennon, "These results suggest that treating high blood pressure as a person ages continues to be a crucial factor in reducing their risk of Alzheimer's disease."
(Excerpt) Read more at medicalxpress.com ...
>> Get your blood pressure down toward normal, to stave off all sorts of future issues
both that and blood sugar — super deadly combination
Daily aerobic exercise as little as 20 minutes
Is best defense against dementia, Alzheimer’s, strokes, heart attacks, high blood pressure, diabetes etc
Only other requirement is keep weight in normal range.
Although aneurysms can be hereditary, untreated blood pressure can also lead to them. My sister was never treated for high blood pressure. When she saw the doctor, and her blood pressure was high, she’d blame it on “white coat syndrome.” She ended up with four aneurysms in her head. One, which was on the right side of her head was so big, it caused that eye to turn in. Her eye doctor thought she’d had a stroke and referred her to a neurosurgeon. Through catheterization, they found four of them in her head in various spots. They tied off the inner carotid artery, and it cut the flow to three of them. The one left they planned to track via CT scans. She was 63 when she had the surgery, and stopped smoking cold turkey. Never picked up another cigarette. Five years later she was diagnosed with lung cancer. She died on her birthday in 2011.
Blood pressure may be like a lot of medical science, backwoods. Now we know cholesterol doesn’t cause arterial problems, it is actually created by the body to heal arteries. Statins are poison. When they discovered that statins lower cholesterol, suddenly they had to prove that cholesterol was the problem. Blood pressure could be similarly not the cause of problems, but merely an indication that problems are manifested. So treat the blood pressure, but not the underlying issues. Backwards science.
High blood pressure exerts tremendous damage from the inside of the vascular system. It hurts the kidneys, heart, vessels, liver, and more. Even if you can't find the source (there are probably over a dozen influencers of blood pressure), reducing the damage is good.
Addressing root cause it always best, so find that when possible and fix it. I can even say exercise, food, and supplements can bring it down to normal or below, but maybe only some of those options address some root causes.
Do what you can, but we can all agree chronically high blood pressure is not a good thing.
No, what we can all agree on is that it’s very possible that blood pressure is just an indicator of underlying problems that are doing the real damage. I do not claim to know for sure, I just know that science and medicine have become the least credible aspect of our society.
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