Hypertension shows weak to no link to cognition in late life

There appears to only be a very weak to no significant correlation between hypertension and cognitive function in late life, reports a recent study.

The study included 4,314 older adults (mean age 64.3 years) who were followed for approximately 7 years. Of the participants, 2,285 had self-reported hypertension at baseline and at the follow-up, while 2,029 did not. Measures of cognitive function included letter and category frequency, immediate and delayed cognition, similarities, and digit ordering. By the time of follow-up, patients had an average age of 71.2 years.

Bayesian regression analysis found that self-reported hypertension had some predictive value for letter frequency and changes in letter fluency performance by the follow-up. However, while these correlation estimates were nonzero, the model also showed that they were generally weak and trivial.

Moreover, the regression model found no significant benefit of adding hypertension status to the prediction model, yielding no better predictive value for baseline, follow-up, or change values in cognitive performance.

The researchers then looked at the average duration of hypertension (18.8 years) and likewise found strong evidence suggesting that this variable was not associated with any measure of cognition, as per Bayesian models.

“Self-reported hypertension had a very small negative association with measures of executive functioning but not memory functioning, which was not apparent until the eighth decade of life,” the researchers said.

“Future research might explore cognitive changes over longer time intervals to add to our understanding of how hypertension and other cerebrovascular risk factors could impact cognition,” they added.