Treating blood pressure may help prevent dementia

By Julie Steenhuysen

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Treating high blood pressure in the very elderly may help reduce their risk of developing dementia, researchers said on Monday.

Blood pressure treatment in the over-80 set has already been shown to reduce risk of heart problems and fatal strokes.

"There may be an additional benefit in terms of prevention of dementia," said Dr. Ruth Peters of Imperial College London, whose study appears in the journal Lancet Neurology.

The findings were based on a new analysis of a study of nearly 4,000 people that was among the first to show the benefit of offering treatment for high blood pressure to people over 80, a group often overlooked in medical studies.

That study found patients whose high blood pressure was treated with a diuretic, with or without a second blood pressure drug called an ACE inhibitor, had a reduced risk of death from stroke and death from any cause.

Several studies have found a link between high blood pressure and dementia, which is marked by a loss of memory and other cognitive abilities, including the ability to speak, identify objects or think abstractly.

The latest analysis looks at whether treatment of high blood pressure helped to stave off dementia.

Participants had no clinical diagnosis of dementia at the start of the trial. Their cognitive function was assessed at the start and then each subsequent year with a standard test called the mini-mental state examination.