Having high blood pressure reduces the flow of blood in the brains of patients with Alzheimer's disease, according to a new study released today at the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) annual meeting today.
"While hypertension is not a cause of Alzheimer's disease, our study shows that it is another hit on the brain that increases its vulnerability to the effects of the disease," said study co-author Cyrus Raji, scientist and M.D. and Ph.D. candidate at the University of Pittsburgh where the study was conducted.
Researchers used MRIs to measure the blood flow in the brains of 68 adults and found that cerebral blood flow was decreased in all patients with hypertension and the most decreased in patients with Alzheimer's disease.
The patient group included 48 normal individuals, including 38 with hypertension and 10 without; 20 Alzheimer's patients, including 10 with hypertension and 10 without; and 20 adults with mild cognitive impairment, 10 with hypertension and 10 without. Mild cognitive impairment, which affects brain functions such as language, attention and reasoning, is a transition stage between normal aging deficits in the brain and greater levels of dementia.
"These results suggest that by changing blood flow to the brain, hypertension -- treated or untreated -- may contribute to the pathology of
Alzheimer's," Raji said.
[Source: Yahoo News]
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