Midlife hypertension is known to increase the all-cause dementia risk. However, is this association consistently observed in late life too? A meta-analysis of 17 studies (34,519 adults with a mean age of 72.5 years) from across the world has recently explored the associations of blood pressure and antihypertensive use with late-life dementia risk. Dementia risk was higher in individuals with untreated hypertension than healthy controls and individuals with treated hypertension (hazard ratio [HR] – 1.42 and 1.26, respectively).
The dementia risk did not increase significantly for individuals with treated hypertension compared to healthy controls (HR – 1.13). Additionally, the association between the antihypertensive use or hypertension status and dementia risk did not vary with baseline blood pressure. The findings suggest that dementia risk reduction can be considered one of the goals…
