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High Blood Pressure Leads to Cognitive Problems
> 12/5/2005 2:55:45 PM

The latest research out of Harvard/BU/VA Boston Healthcare System indicates that high blood pressure leads to an increased risk of cognitive problems later in life.

The uncontrolled hypertensives' decrements on fluency were 2.4 times as great as for those with normal pressure; their decrement with immediate recall was 1.3 times as great. That means by the age of 80, men with uncontrolled hypertension could generate seven fewer words in a given category, and recall about one and a half fewer words on average, than the other 80-year-old men in the study.

This is big news for a number of reasons:
1) hypertension affects a large proportion of the population - in fact, 60% of those 60 years or older have hypertension
2) cognitive difficulties are only one of the dangers for those with high blood pressure
3) hypertension is highly treatable with exercise, dieting and/or medication

For more information about hypertension, visit the American Heart Association.

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