I haven’t read the entire article below and probably won’t ever. It will be used to promote treatment of mild to moderate hypertension in order to prevent dementia, despite cost and drug side effects. Results are distinctly unimpressive. Four years of drug therapy reduced the incidence of dementia and cognitive decline by less than 1%.
I was expecting and hoping for a much more significant reduction. Nevertheless, anti-hypertensive drug therapy is pretty well established as an effective preventative for cardiovascular disease, including stroke.
From JAMA Network:
Fourteen randomized clinical trials were eligible for inclusion (96 158 participants), of which 12 reported the incidence of dementia (or composite of dementia and cognitive impairment [3 trials]) on follow-up and were included in the primary meta-analysis, 8 reported cognitive decline, and 8 reported changes in cognitive test scores. The mean (SD) age of trial participants was 69 (5.4) years and 40 617 (42.2%) were women. The mean systolic baseline blood pressure was 154 (14.9) mm Hg and the mean diastolic blood pressure was 83.3 (9.9) mm Hg. The mean duration of follow-up was 49.2 months. Blood pressure lowering with antihypertensive agents compared with control was significantly associated with a reduced risk of dementia or cognitive impairment (12 trials; 92 135 participants) (7.0% vs 7.5% of patients over a mean trial follow-up of 4.1 years; odds ratio [OR], 0.93 [95% CI, 0.88-0.98]; absolute risk reduction, 0.39% [95% CI, 0.09%-0.68%]; I2 = 0.0%) and cognitive decline (8 trials) (20.2% vs 21.1% of participants over a mean trial follow-up of 4.1 years; OR, 0.93 [95% CI, 0.88-0.99]; absolute risk reduction, 0.71% [95% CI, 0.19%-1.2%]; I2 = 36.1%). Blood pressure lowering was not significantly associated with a change in cognitive test scores.
Conclusions and Relevance
In this meta-analysis of randomized clinical trials, blood pressure lowering with antihypertensive agents compared with control was significantly associated with a lower risk of incident dementia or cognitive impairment.
Steve Parker, M.D.
PS: You know what has been proven to reduce the risk of dementia? The Mediterranean diet!
Advanced Mediterranean Diet 