Having hypertension, or high blood pressure, reduces blood flow in the brains of adults with Alzheimers disease, as per a new study presented today at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA).

While high blood pressure is not a cause of Alzheimers disease, our study shows that it is another hit on the brain that increases its vulnerability to the effects of the disease, said co-author of study Cyrus Raji, scientist and M.D. and Ph.D. candidate at the University of Pittsburgh where the study was conducted.

High blood pressure is a condition in which the blood circulates through the arteries with too much force. As per the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, approximately 50 million Americans have hypertension. People with high blood pressure are at elevated risk for heart attack, stroke and aneurysm. Recently, there has been mounting evidence tying cardiovascular health to brain health.

This study demonstrates that good vascular health is also good for the brain, said co-author Oscar Lopez, M.D., professor of neurology and psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh. Even in people with Alzheimers disease, it is important to detect and aggressively treat high blood pressure and also to focus on disease prevention.

For the study, the scientists used arterial spin-labeled magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), which can measure blood flow in the brain, to image 68 elderly adults. Arterial spin-labeled MRI is a novel, noninvasive technique that requires no external contrast agent.

The patient group included 48 normal individuals, including 38 with high blood pressure and 10 without; 20 Alzheimers patients, including 10 with high blood pressure and 10 without; and 20 adults with mild cognitive impairment, 10 with high blood pressure 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.

The MRI results showed that in all patient groups blood flow in the brain was substantially decreased in patients with high blood pressure in comparison to those without. Cerebral blood flow was lowest among the Alzheimers patients with hypertension, but the normal group with high blood pressure showed significantly lower cerebral blood flow than the normal group without hypertension.

These results suggest that by changing blood flow to the brain, hypertensiontreated or untreatedmay contribute to the pathology of Alzheimers, Raji said.


Posted by: Emily    Source

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