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Hypertension May Not Speed Brain Decline

High Blood Pressure May Not Accelerate Age-Related Mental Decline

By Jennifer Warner
WebMD Health News

Reviewed by Brunilda Nazario, MD

Sept. 29, 2003 -- Having high blood pressure may affect a person's health in a variety of ways, but a new study shows the condition may not necessarily speed up age-related declines in mental performance.

The research suggests that contrary to the classical model of aging, high blood pressure alone doesn't accelerate age-related declines in performing certain memory and visual tasks.

In fact, researchers found that middle-age adults with high blood pressure showed more of a slow down in these areas than older adults with high blood pressure.

Researchers say that previous studies have hinted that people with high blood pressure perform worse on tests that measure mental processing speed, attention, and memory. But those studies have been unable to isolate the effects high blood pressure and age on specific mental tasks.

In addition, many of the patients involved in those studies also had evidence of other health problems, such as heart disease, or were on medications that might have affected the results.

"We know that in general, hypertension increases with age," says researcher David Madden, PhD, a cognitive psychologist at Duke University, in a news release. "Our goal was to determine if there was any effect of elevated blood pressure on the natural course of healthy aging."

High Blood Pressure and the Aging Brain

In this study, published in the September issue of Aging Neuropsychology and Cognition, researchers compared 48 healthy adults with untreated high blood pressure with 48 healthy adults with normal blood pressure. There were three groups comprised of adults between the ages of 20 to 39, 40 to 59, and 60 to 79. Each group completed a variety of mental tasks on a computer that assessed visual search and memory skills.

Researchers found that increasing age was associated with specific declines in mental performance that were beyond what they expected. But these deficits were not associated with increasing blood pressure and did not support the classic theory that hypertension associated with increasing age results in a decrease in mental performance.

Instead, blood pressure-related declines in mental performance were found among middle-aged adults between ages 40 and 59 with high blood pressure, but not among those 60 to79 with high blood pressure.

Researchers say these changes in mental performance were significant, but they are unlikely to interfere with mental functioning during everyday life. But these changes may become more significant when other diseases, such as heart disease, are present.

The study also showed that in addition to a general slowing of mental processing speed, there were specific age-related changes in mental search and visual search skills. But the declines in mental performance associated with high blood pressure were not task-specific.

"The significance of these cognitive effects will become clearer as additional evidence is obtained regarding the changes in brain structure and function that typically accompany chronically elevated blood pressure," says Madden.