Associations between Hypertension, Treatment, and Cognitive Function in the Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing

Abstract

Epidemiological studies have produced conflicting results regarding the associations between the use of different hypertensive drugs and cognition. Data from the Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing (TILDA), a nationwide prospective longitudinal study of adults aged 50 or more years, was used to explore the associations between hypertensive status, categories of antihypertensive and cognitive function controlling for age, education, and other demographic and lifestyle factors. The study sample included 8173 participants. ANCOVAs and multivariate regressions were used to assess the cross-sectional and longitudinal associations between cognitive function and hypertension status and the different categories of hypertensive medication. Hypertension was not associated with decline in global cognitive and executive functions and were fully explained by age and education. Different hypertensive medications were not associated with cognitive function. Consistent with previous studies, changes in cognition can largely be explained by age and education. The use of antihypertensive medications is neither harmful nor protective for cognition.

Effect of the duration of hypertension on white matter structure and its link with cognition

“…27 Participants was divided into three stages: short duration (<5 years), medium duration (5–20 years) and long duration (>20 years), which was primarily informed by prior studies that directly investigated HTN duration and longitudinal research with different follow-ups, highlighting the potential significance of 5 and 20-year cutoffs. 5,9,14,26,34…”

“…27 Participants was divided into three stages: short duration (<5 years), medium duration (5-20 years) and long duration (>20 years), which was primarily informed by prior studies that directly investigated HTN duration and longitudinal research with different follow-ups, highlighting the potential significance of 5 and 20-year cutoffs. 5,9,14,26,34 A total of 1218 participants (782 women, 436 men, aged 55 The current study conformed to the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki and was approved by the Ethics Committee and Institutional Review Board of Beijing Normal University Imaging Center for Brain Research. Data was anonymized and all the participants gave their informed consent, written.…”

“…4 Several longitudinal studies with varying follow-up periods assessed the effect of chronic HTN on cognition or dementia risk, and we found that those with longer follow-up (>20 years) were more likely to detect detriment impact of HTN, [5][6][7][8] whereas studies with shorter follow-up times (<5 years) tended to fail to find significant relationships. [9][10][11][12] Increasing time of HTN could lead to both cognitive impairment and increased dementia risk, [13][14][15] independent of age of onset. 4 It's likely a slowly developing hazarding process as cognitive changes may not present in early stage but become more apparent after 20 years or more of HTN.…”