A study of 20,000 people at Oxford University suggests that blood pressure alters the structure of the brain.

We know that abnormal blood pressure and blood sugar are risk factors for dementia, and that this effect may occur early and not in later life.
new evidence for a large study published in nature-newsletter by a team at the University of Oxford.
study found that high blood pressure and diabetes can adversely affect thinking speed and memory in a healthy brain population, especially as blood pressure rises and cognitive performance gets worse.
The study, which focused on middle-aged people, included more than 22,000 relatively healthy brain subjects aged 44-73 in the UK Biobank (no Alzheimer's disease, neurological disorders, etc.) and assessed their cognitive and executive function through brain imaging and cognitive tests.
analysis found that age was the strongest predictive factor for executive function, followed by the risk of taking antihypyuric drugs and having diabetes and alzheimer's disease in the high-risk gene APOE4.
, the team listed these points as cerebrovascular risk factors.
of these factors, the team focused on analyzing the effects of elevated blood pressure on cognitive function and noted that this manifests it in several ways.
, in people who did not take antihypergery drugs, the performance of the executive function decreased gradually as systolic blood pressure increased.
, the executive function of patients with confirmed hypertension who were already taking antihypertensive drugs was significantly worse overall than those who did not take the drug.
, in people who have taken antihypypressants, cognitive function is more stable when systolic pressure is controlled below 140 mm Hg, and cognitive function decreases significantly when systolic pressure exceeds 140 mm Hg.
Excly, when the effects of age are taken into account, the decline in executive function as blood pressure increases occurs mainly in the 44-69 age group, and is even greater in the non-drug population, regardless of whether they have developed to the point where medication is needed.
was not observed in people over 70 years of age.
combined with imaging results, it was found that some changes in brain structure were closely related to the above-mentioned cerebrovascular risk factors, including the volume of the pre-frontal network of the brain's frontalloce and the integrity of whiteness connections between regions of the brain.
team concluded that in relatively healthy people, cerebrovascular risk factors can also affect brain structure and cognitive function.
", although only a slight decline in thinking speed and memory, people do not even notice in their daily lives.
but the change could be detected, indicating that the subjects' brains had changed and could deteriorate with age.
more important is to prevent further decline in cognitive function as early as possible.
" every change in blood pressure is critical. Professor Masud Husain, a neuroscientist at the University of Oxford and a member of the
study, said: "Even if blood pressure rises only slightly, monitoring and treatment can alter the structure of the brain, affect the speed of thinking in middle-age people, and may also reduce the risk of developing dementia later in life."
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