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Treating high blood pressure in older adults reduces their risk of dementia, an analysis of previous research shows, providing more evidence that heart health and brain health are intimately connected.
In a new meta-analysis, published Sept. 12 in JAMA Network Open, researchers found that older adults with untreated high blood pressure were 42% more likely to develop dementia during the study period compared to healthy older adults. This was true even among 70- and 80-year-olds.
[…]“The study suggests that successful treatment of hypertension [high blood pressure] might bring down the risk of developing dementia to the level of individuals with no hypertension,” said Dr. S. Ahmad Sajjadi, a neurologist with UCI Health and associate professor of neurology at UCI School of Medicine in Orange, California, who was not involved in the new analysis.
Read the article here.
