title: How much does hypertension affect cognition?: explained variance in cross-sectional analysis of non-demented community-dwelling individuals in the SEARCH study.
abstract: Vascular pathology impairs cognition and impaired cognition increases the risk of dementia. Hypertension is arguably the vascular risk factor that can be reverted best. Here we estimated the effect magnitude of hypertension by determining the variance in cognition explained by systolic blood pressure (sBP) in non-demented community-dwelling individuals. We recruited 525 individuals (mean age 65, range 40-85) selected from the city registry of Muenster, Germany, measured cognitive performance with a comprehensive test battery and assessed vascular risk based on glycosylated hemoglobin, serum cholesterol, high sensitive C-reactive protein, body mass index, smoking pack years, and blood pressure. Including gender and education as well as the vascular risk factors, multiple linear regression analysis for different age groups showed that in midlife age groups systolic blood pressure explained up to 11% of the variance in cognitive performance. These findings suggest that in non-demented community-dwelling individuals hypertension may account for one tenth of cognitive impairment and thus for an increased risk for dementia.
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, University of Muenster, Albert-Schweitzer-Strasse 33, 48149 Muenster, Germany. knecht@uni-muenster.de
authors.forename: Stefan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Knecht
authors.forename: Heike
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Wersching
authors.forename: Hubertus
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Lohmann
authors.forename: Klaus
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Berger
authors.forename: Erich Bernd
authors.initials: EB
authors.lastname: Ringelstein
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D001794:Blood Pressure; D003071:Cognition; D003072:Cognition Disorders / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000209:etiology; D015331:Cohort Studies; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D004493:Education; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D006973:Hypertension / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000523:psychology*; D016014:Linear Models; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D012307:Risk Factors; D012737:Sex Factors