Dementia and Hypertension Linked Again
Another study has found that hypertension may contribute to increased risk of dementia, this time with evidence of actual brain abnormalities. I previously wrote about the link between Hypertension and Alzheimer's disease.
This is especially relevant to those who are not controlling their blood pressure. Blood pressure is not something one feels is high or low. Specific medical evaluation, blood pressure test, is necessary.
Data from an offshoot of the Women's Health Initiative found that participants' baseline blood 
pressure was strongly correlated with volume of lesions in their brains' white matter, according to Lewis Kuller, MD, DrPH, of the University of Pittsburgh, and colleagues.
Along with earlier studies linking blood pressure to clinical dementia, the evidence "supports tight control of blood pressure levels, especially beginning at younger and middle age as a possible and perhaps only way to prevent dementia," Kuller and colleagues concluded online in the Journal of Clinical Hypertension.
Treating hypertension in the elderly appears to protect against dementia and cognitive 
decline. Uncontrolled hypertension in older patients increases the risk of cognitive impairment. Hypertensive patients had a 70% greater risk of non-amnestic mild cognitive impairment compared with nonhypertensive patients according to Christiane Reitz, M.D., Ph.D., of Columbia University in New York. (C Reitz et al. "Hypertension and the risk of mild cognitive impairment." International Society of Vascular Behavioral and Cognitive Disorders meeting, July 11-14, San Antonio. Final program and abstract book. Abstract O-6)
For each year an individual took medication to lower blood pressure, the risk of dementia decreased by about 3%, found Rita Peila, Ph.D., an epidemiologist at the National Institute on Aging and a scientist at the Pacific Health Research Institute in Honolulu.
My question is whether a person who controls their blood pressure and hypertension with medicine can decrease their risk of dementia to that of someone without hypertension. I predict that other risk factors would need to be accounted for but, other things being equal, can a person with controlled high blood pressure eliminate the risk of dementia?
