Antihypertensive drugs help prevent dementia in older adults

Use of antihypertensive medications can help reduce the risk of dementia among older people in the general population, results of a study have shown. In addition, the same benefit extends to the very old and frail patients.

Findings showed an inverse association between exposure to antihypertensive drugs and dementia risk. Patients with low, intermediate, and high exposures showed a 2 percent (95 percent confidence interval [CI], ‒4 to 7), 12 percent (95 percent CI, 6‒17), and 24 percent (95 percent CI, 19‒28) reduction in dementia risk, respectively, compared with those with very low exposure.

This association persisted among the very old (aged ≥85 years) and frail patients (ie, those classified as having a high mortality risk at 1 year).

In this nested case-control study, a team of investigators evaluated the effect of antihypertensive drug treatment on the risk of dementia in a heterogeneous group of new users of the said drug. A total of 215,547 patients from Lombardy, Italy, aged ≥65 years, who had initiated antihypertensive drug use between 2009 and 2012 were included in the analysis.

Cases included 13,812 patients (mean age, 77.5 years; male, 40 percent) who developed dementia or Alzheimer’s disease during follow-up (up to 2019). Five control participants were chosen to be matched to each case according to their sex, age, and clinical status.

The investigators measured the participants’ exposure to drug therapy by the proportion of the follow-up covered by antihypertensive medications. They also modelled the outcome risk associated with exposure to antihypertensive drugs using conditional logistic regression.