What high blood pressure causes in Alzheimer's disease
Christiane Fux studied journalism and psychology in Hamburg. The experienced medical editor has been writing magazine articles, news and factual texts on all conceivable health topics since 2001. In addition to her work for, Christiane Fux is also active in prose. Her first crime novel was published in 2012, and she also writes, designs and publishes her own crime plays.
More posts by Christiane Fux All content is checked by medical journalists.High blood pressure is considered a risk factor for Alzheimer's. But the matter is more tricky than expected: Contrary to what has long been suspected, it probably does not accelerate the disease mechanisms of Alzheimer's disease directly. The damage it causes prevents the brain from being able to compensate for the failures caused by Alzheimer's. This is why Alzheimer's is noticeable earlier in people with high blood pressure.
No direct effect on Alzheimer's
Other factors that damage blood vessel health also have this effect, such as obesity, smoking, sedentary lifestyle and diabetes: They all promote dementia due to circulatory disorders in the brain (vascular dementia), but not directly Alzheimer's.
This is what Pashanti Vemuri and her colleagues from the Mayo Clinic in Rochester found out. The researcher recently presented data from a study at the international Alzheimer's congress in Chicago.The researcher and colleagues had documented the cognitive performance and the state of the brains of more than 238 seniors. As part of a long-term study, these had previously been regularly examined for their state of health together with another 3,000 test subjects.
Protein waste in the brain
Vemuri and her team made amyloid PETs from all participants. These are brain scans that can detect so-called amyloid beta deposits. These plaques consist of protein waste that accumulates massively in the brains of Alzheimer's patients and is made responsible for the destruction of nerve cells (neurons).
Double effect of Alzheimer's and cardiovascular risk
While subjects without cardiovascular risk factors (such as high blood pressure) were largely able to maintain their intellectual abilities in the course of the long-term study, participants with corresponding risk factors deteriorated mentally. The same was true for participants, in whom the researchers observed an increase in amyloid beta plaques. The cognitive abilities of participants deteriorated particularly quickly, to which both applied: Plaque increase and increased cardiovascular risk. With them, the intellectual achievements even dwindled at double the speed.
No more plaques from high blood pressure
It is conceivable that heart risk factors such as high blood pressure promote the deposition of amyloid beta. But the researchers found no evidence of this. In middle-aged patients with high blood pressure, no more amyloid had accumulated in the brain by the age of 70 than in people with normal blood pressure values.
Lost mental reserves
Rather, risk factors for the heart and circulatory system appeared to promote the decline of brain neurons independently of Alzheimer's disease and in different ways, thus adding up. In this way, the patient also loses brain capacities that can otherwise compensate for the loss in the case of Alzheimer's-related deterioration.
It has long been known that mentally active people also benefit from such a “cognitive reserve”. Although they accumulate amyloid beta plaques just as quickly as other sufferers, they can compensate for this better and longer.
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