Khaberni - A recent scientific study concluded that helping to lower and control blood pressure can reduce the risks of developing dementia diseases, including Alzheimer's, which underscores the importance of monitoring and managing blood pressure.
The British newspaper "The Guardian" reported that researchers found that people who receive intensive treatment for high blood pressure, such as taking medications and undergoing exercise, are less likely to develop dementia.
According to the World Health Organization, 57 million people worldwide were affected by dementia in the year 2021 alone, and despite these high figures, experts have always emphasized that dementia is not an inevitable result of aging.
Researchers found that about half of the cases can be prevented or delayed by addressing 14 risk factors, including hearing loss, smoking, obesity, excessive alcohol consumption, and social isolation, in addition to high blood pressure.
Researchers now say that addressing the latter factor can reduce the risk of dementia by 15 percent.
Professor Jiang He, a co-author of the study from the Southwestern Medical Center at the University of Texas, USA, said: "Blood pressure-lowering treatment can prevent dementia in patients with uncontrolled high blood pressure."
He stressed that given the widespread prevalence of uncontrolled high blood pressure globally, this effective intervention should be widely adopted and expanded to reduce the global burden of dementia.
Researchers from China and the United States reported in the journal "Nature Medicine" that the trial included 33,995 people aged 40 and over suffering from uncontrolled high blood pressure, distributed across 326 villages in rural China.
The team randomly chose 163 of these villages, where 17,407 participants living there received intensive blood pressure treatment from "village doctors," who are community health care providers but not physicians. This included free or inexpensive blood pressure-lowering medications given in customized doses, health guidance to help them adhere to the medications and modify their lifestyles - such as losing weight and reducing salt intake - and equipment and instructions for monitoring blood pressure at home.
The other 163 villages - encompassing 16,588 participants - received "usual care," meaning the participants' blood pressure was managed in their typical clinical environments. While they were recommended lifestyle changes, and some took blood pressure-lowering medications, this group did not receive home blood pressure monitoring devices or free medication, or training.
When the researchers followed up with the participants after four years, they found that 668 participants in the intensive blood pressure management group were diagnosed with dementia, compared to 734 in the usual care group, with analyses indicating that the former group was 15 percent less likely to develop dementia. The researchers also found that this group was 16 percent less likely to develop cognitive impairment without dementia.
Professor Tara Spires-Jones, Director of the Centre for Discovery Brain Sciences at the University of Edinburgh, said the research "provides additional strong evidence supporting the importance of managing blood pressure and other cardiovascular risks to protect the brain during aging."
However, she added that "it is important to note that treating high blood pressure is not a definitive guarantee, as some people who receive treatment still develop dementia."
