In a new study, researchers found that several high blood pressure drugs are linked to lower dementia risk.
They suggest that high blood pressure treatments may help prevent dementia.
The research was conducted by a team from the University of Leipzig.
In the study, the team aimed to study the link between dementia and use of high blood pressure drugs in older people in Germany.
They used data from the Disease Analyzer database (IQVIA) and included 12,405 patients with dementia and 12,405 patients without dementia.
In these patients, some had high blood pressure and several types of high blood pressure drugs were used, including diuretics, beta blockers, calcium channel blockers, angiotensin-converting enzyme [ACE] inhibitors, and angiotensin II receptor blockers.
The researchers found that the use of angiotensin II receptor blockers, ACE inhibitors, calcium channel blockers, and beta blockers was linked to a decrease in dementia risk.
In addition, in patients treated with calcium channel blockers, increasing the treatment duration was linked to the risk of dementia.
These findings show it is important to take high blood pressure drugs to prevent hypertension-related cognitive decline.
But the team suggests that high blood pressure therapy alone cannot guarantee that dementia will never occur. Healthy lifestyle habits are also very helpful in the prevention of dementia.
Future work needs to have a better understanding of why these drugs are linked to a decreased risk of dementia.
The team also plans to examine the effects of lipid-lowering drugs and depression drugs.
The lead author of the study is Dr. Jens Bohlken, MD, Ph.D. from the Institute of Social Medicine.
The study is published in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease.
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