Hypertension: Long-term high blood pressure may damage the blood vessel health of the brain.

August 8, 2020 // -- In a recent study published in the international journal Hypertension, scientists from the University of Michigan School of Medicine and others found that long-term high blood pressure may increase the risk of small blood vessel damage in the brain, which is often directly related to the risk of dementia and stroke; We all know that high blood pressure can lead to stroke, but past studies have only linked high blood pressure to the risk of Alzheimer's disease, and in this new study, researchers focused on how high blood pressure affects cerebral small vessel disease, the most common cerebrovascular disease in people with stroke and dementia.
Source: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain, researchers studied and analyzed data from 1,686 adults who did not suffer from stroke or dementia at the start of the study, measuring blood pressure in old age and conducting MRIs scans of the brain to check for microbleeds in different parts of the brain, accumulation of small blood products in brain tissue, and death of cerebrovascular disease.
Researchers found that the longer participants developed high blood pressure, the higher their risk of developing cerebrovascular lesions; Dr. Jose Rafael Romero noted that this was the first population-based study to report a link between the trend of long-term hypertension in individuals and the prevalence of small vascular lesions in the brain in old age;
Alzheimer's disease is the sixth-largest cause of death in the U.S., with about 6 million people currently suffering from the disease in the U.S., a figure that is expected to more than double as baby boomers age; With 6.2 million people dying from strokes worldwide in 17 years, more than 146,000 in the U.S., the fifth leading cause of death in the U.S., and about 46 percent of adults in the U.S. now have high blood pressure;
The researchers hope this study will increase awareness among people and medical practitioners that if high blood pressure is treated early, the population may reduce the risk of cerebrovascular lesions and, more importantly, the risk of stroke and dementia later in life;
researcher Romero said that in the future, we will use long-term research to fine-tune the therapies we develop and find the best drugs that can be effective in preventing cerebrovascular diseases, and while this study includes most people living near the Flemingham area of Massachusetts, the results may apply to people of other races and other geographic areas.
the results of this paper are important because they reveal a link between high blood pressure, cerebrovascular disease, and stroke and dementia, which until this paper was only hypothetical and lacked evidence.
Finally, the researchers said, this study highlights the importance of regularly checking the body's own blood pressure and timely intervention of blood pressure, blood pressure control is the most effective way to reduce the risk of stroke and dementia, and now experts and clinicians can use many drugs to reduce patients' high blood pressure to the desired level, so we have no reason to let the body's blood pressure out of control, thereby increasing the risk of other diseases.
sources: Rodica Elena Petrea, Adrienne O'Donnell, Alexa S. Beiser, et al. Mid to Late Life Hypertension Trends and Cerebral Small Vessel Disease in The Framingham Heart Study, Hypertension (2020). DOI:10.1161/HYPERTENSIONAHA.120.15073.