A recent study from Boston University found high blood pressure may double an adult’s risk of developing epilepsy.
In the study of 2,986 U.S. adults with an average age of 58 years, 55 new cases of epilepsy were identified during an average follow-up of 19 years.
The team found hypertension, defined as the presence of elevated blood pressure or use of antihypertensive medications, was linked to a nearly 2-fold higher risk of epilepsy.
After excluding participants with normal blood pressure on antihypertensive medications, they found high blood pressure was linked to a 2.44 times higher risk of epilepsy.
This study shows that hypertension, a common, modifiable, vascular risk factor, is an independent predictor of epilepsy in older age.
This observation may help identify subgroups of patients who will benefit from targeted, aggressive hypertension management.
It also encourages the performance of dedicated clinical studies that will focus on early interventions to reduce the burden of epilepsy in older age.
If you care about high blood pressure, please read studies that drinking tea could help lower blood pressure, and early time-restricted eating could help improve blood pressure.
For more information about blood pressure, please see recent studies about added sugar in your diet linked to higher blood pressure, and results showing herbal supplements could help reduce high blood pressure.
The study was published in Epilepsia and conducted by Maria Stefanidou, et al.
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