Are midlife blood pressure patterns linked to dementia later in life?

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Long-term blood pressure measures, including visit-to-visit blood pressure variability and cumulative blood pressure, are strong indicators of cardiovascular and vascular risks. Researchers used both measures to model up to 20 years of blood pressure patterns representative of midlife and examined their associations with dementia later in life.

For 3,201 individuals from the Framingham Heart Study, the researchers used multivariate logistic regression to examine associations between long-term blood pressure patterns in midlife and dementia development at ages 65 or older.

After adjustment for covariates, each increase in cumulative midlife blood pressure quartile was associated with a sequential increase in dementia risk. For example, the highest quartile of cumulative systolic blood pressure had an approximately 2.5-fold increased risk of all-cause dementia; the abstract does not specify the comparison group. Visit-to-visit blood pressure variability was not significantly associated with dementia onset.

The findings suggest that cumulative blood pressure over midlife predicts dementia risk later in life.