Blood Pressure Reduce Risk of Alzheimer’s Disease
We all are aware of dementia and of course, it’s another common type such as Alzheimer’s disease. This condition is a neurological disorder that causes damage to the brain. The disease is progressive in nature and can cause severe damage to the brain.
The brain area affected by the condition usually involves the brain part responsible for memory, thinking, and language. So, I often see conditions beginning with memory problems, said a renowned neurologist from Healthwire while addressing a webinar on Alzheimer’s disease and its awareness.
What is Alzheimer’s Disease?
Alzheimer’s disease is considered a silent epidemic. The condition has many risk factors including your genetic makeup and ethnicity. People who are African American are usually at a higher risk of suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. Other than this, there are many other prominent factors behind this. Symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease often appear in the mid-60s however, in some cases an early onset of the disease can also occur in the 30s.
There are many stages of the disease as well. Normally, Alzheimer’s disease usually occurs in 4 clinical stages. These disease stages are known as preclinical, mild, moderate, and then severe disease stages. The condition is progressive in nature which means it will get worse over time. The condition is common to an extent that it is known to be the fifth leading cause of death among the population.
Recently there has been a lot of research on the disease. The research area usually targets ethnicities and disease treatments. There is recent research on the treatment of disease because it is considered that different ethnicities can react differently to the disease. The investigations were based on data collected from millions of people.
Blood Pressure Risk of Alzheimer’s Disease
There has been a recent study in this regard in which a popular telmisartan has been found to lower the risk of Alzheimer’s disease among black adults. Let’s dive deeper into the details.
Telmisartan is a popular that is known as a popular blood pressure-controlling medication. This disease is an angiotensin II receptor blocker that blocks the enzyme responsible for the narrowing of blood vessels. The medication is good as it helps to deal with hypertension. However, this recent study investigated the impact of this medication on Alzheimer’s disease.
To investigate the relationship between medicine and its impact on the diseases suffered the scientist used data on 5.6 million people from different backgrounds. By using a wide range of statistical analysis and artificial intelligence, the scientific sound the link between telmisartan target and Alzheimer’s disease.
The research data consisted of the screening of 5.62 million individuals in their 60s or more than that. Among these people, there were 115394 black users and 583941 non-Hispanic European American users. The result indicated that the people were black adults who have modern or high exposure to blood pressure medication telmisartan have a 2.5% risk of AD or dementia. However, other chunks of the population having low or no exposure to have a 3.8% incidence of dementia.
Furthermore, the findings of the study indicated that people who have moderate or high exposure to telmisartan medication have a 6.3% incidence of dementia. Other groups of people having low or no exposure have 8.3% dementia incidences. The results reveal that blood pressure had no impact on the incidence of Alzheimer’s disease among the non-Hispanic European American population.
Possible Explanation Behind the Protective Effect
These results were justified by the effect of medication on peroxisome proliferator-activated receptors (PPAR-y) which are responsible for the metabolism of lipids and carbohydrates as well as reducing the severity of inflammation. Can cross the blood-brain barrier effectively even when the dose is small. So, this accounts for the ability of the medication to limit the production of plaque in the brain which is a major contributing factor in cognitive decline and the onset of Alzheimer’s disease.
Bottom Line!
The result of a recent study indicated that a blood pressure-regulating medication can have a significant impact on reducing the risk of Alzheimer’s disease among the black population. However, some of the limitations of the study demand further detailed investigation of the current findings and explaining the possible pathway behind it.
