High Blood Pressure at Middle Age Can Increase the Risk of Dementia

A few days ago I posted a piece about high cholesterol levels at mid-life and the risk of dementia. Now there’s another report, this time about high blood pressure in middle age and, again, the risk of dementia. It’s published in the journal Hypertension.

Out of 1,890 Japanese Americans men living in Hawaii, 112 developed dementia while participating in a heart program and the Honolulu-Asia Aging Study. They had their blood pressure checked over an average of 32 years. The subjects who developed dementia had an increase in systolic blood pressure of 0.26 mm Hg per year between mid-life and late life, in addition to the gradual age-related smaller increase experienced by all participants. In those taking antihypertensive agents, the association between the occurrence of dementia and increased systolic blood pressure was weaker. Diastolic pressures showed similar changes.

Thus both raised cholesterol and raised blood pressure at middle age predispose to the development of dementias. There’s a difference, however. In the case of cholesterol, the dementia was of the Alzheimer type, whereas with blood pressure increases, it was vascular dementia. This carries no practical difference for the baby-boomer – both risk factors need to be treated. The difference in causes and types of the dementias may provide scientists with additional clues as to the causation of the two types of dementia, however.