C urrent guidelines recommend the assessment of vascular risk factors, target organ damage, and blood pressure (BP) levels to guide the treatment on primary hypertension.1 Besides BP levels, other BP-related features, such as the nocturnal dipping 2 or more recently, visit-to-visit or long-term BP variability (BPV), have been independently associated with clinical cardiovascular outcomes in a recent systematic review and meta-analysis. 3 Also, the prognostic value of BPV measured with ambulatory BP monitoring (ABPM) for 24 hours (also value-to-value or short-term BPV) has been evaluated. Data on short-term BPV from 11 populations 4 suggest a positive association between measures of short-term BPV and cardiovascular death or any (fatal and nonfatal) event. Although the contribution of short-term BPV to the prediction of cardiovascular events was shown to be small (<1%), this is still a matter of debate because results from individual studies support significant contributions. 5,6 It has been also suggested that the prognostic significance of BPV on stroke risk is weaker for short-term than for longterm BPV in treated hypertension. 7 However, these data need further investigation taking into account not only between subject BPV but also within subject BPV.Moreover, several indices of short-term BPV have been related to the presence of subclinical damage in one or multiple organs, including the heart, kidney, and vessels, independently of BP levels. [8][9][10] About the brain, hypertension is a major risk factor for cerebral small vessel disease (CSVD), which is an Abstract-Blood pressure (BP) variability is associated with stroke risk, but less is known about subclinical cerebral small vessel disease (CSVD). We aimed to determine whether CSVD relates to short-term BP variability independently of BP levels and also, whether they improve CSVD discrimination beyond clinical variables and office BP levels. This was a cohort study on asymptomatic hypertensives who underwent brain magnetic resonance imaging and 24-hour ambulatory BP monitoring. Office and average 24-hour, daytime and nighttime BP levels, and several metrics of BP variability (SD, weighted SD, coefficient of variation, and average real variability [ARV]) were calculated. Definition of CSVD was based on the presence of lacunar infarcts and white matter hyperintensity grades. Multivariate analysis and integrated discrimination improvement were performed to assess whether BP variability and levels were independently associated with CSVD and improved its discrimination. Four hundred eighty-seven individuals participated (median age, 64; 47% women). CSVD was identified in 18.9%, related to age, male sex, diabetes mellitus, use of treatment, ambulatory BP monitoring-defined BP levels, and ARV of systolic BP at any period. The highest prevalence (33.7%) was found in subjects with both 24-hour BP levels and ARV elevated. BP levels at any period and ARV (24 hours and nocturnal) emerged as independent predictors of CSVD, and discrimination was incrementally improv...

High blood pressure accelerates normal aging stiffness process. Arterial stiffness (AS) has been previously associated with impaired cognitive function and dementia. Our aims are to study how cognitive function and status (mild cognitive impairment, MCI and normal cognitive aging, NCA) relate to AS in a community-based population of hypertensive participants assessed with office and 24-hour ambulatory blood pressure measurements. Six hundred ninety-nine participants were studied, 71 had MCI and the rest had NCA. Office pulse pressure (PP), carotid-femoral pulse wave velocity, and 24-hour ambulatory PP monitoring were collected. Also, participants underwent a brain magnetic resonance to study cerebral small-vessel disease (cSVD) lesions. Multivariate analysis-related cognitive function and cognitive status to AS measurements after adjusting for demographic, vascular risk factors, and cSVD. Carotid-femoral pulse wave velocity and PP at different periods were inversely correlated with several cognitive domains, but only awake PP measurements were associated with attention after correcting for confounders (beta = -0.22, 95% confidence interval (CI) -0.41, -0.03). All ambulatory PP measurements were related to MCI, which was independently associated with nocturnal PP (odds ratio (OR) = 2.552, 95% CI 1.137, 5.728) and also related to the presence of deep white matter hyperintensities (OR = 1.903, 1.096, 3.306). Therefore, higher day and night ambulatory PP measurements are associated with poor cognitive outcomes.