A new study conducted by medical experts at four (4) different universities has revealed that those who are genetically predisposed to suffer from high blood pressure (BP) are far less likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease than those who have low blood pressure.
Experts inform, however, that it’s not exactly the medical condition that keeps the disease away, but rather the anti-hypertension meds that doctors prescribe these patients in order to help them keep their blood pressure levels in check.
Dr. John Kauwe, co-author and associate professor of biology over at Brigham Young University, gave a statement saying that “It’s likely that this protective effect is coming from antihypertensive drugs. These drugs are already FDA approved. We need to take a serious look at them for Alzheimer’s prevention”.
If further tests will prove these initial findings right, the medical community might be on its way to making significant progress in helping Alzheimer’s patients manage their condition.
For their study, published in the journal PLOS Medicine, the researchers looked at genetic data gathered by the Alzheimer’s Disease Genetics Consortium as well as the International Genomics of Alzheimer’s Project. They needed up settling on a group of 17.008 patients with Alzheimer’s, and a group of 37.154 individuals without Alzheimer’s.
The initial goal of the study was to determine whether or not other health related issues such as high cholesterol, obesity, diabetes, insulin resistance, body mass index (BDI) and high blood pressure had any role to play in the development of the disease.
Dr. Paul Crane, co-author and associate professor specialized in internal medicine over at the University of Washington, gave a statement of his own stressing that the results that he and the rest of the team have come up with are pretty much the opposite of what people would normally expect.
He went on to explain that rather than aiding in the development of Alzheimer’s, high blood pressure actually acts as a protective force of sorts, either by affecting individuals directly, or indirectly through the patient’s frequent exposure to antihypertensive medication.
Dr. Kauwe is proud of what the team has managed to achieve, stating that their paper is the most authoritative to this day when it comes to examining the relationships between Alzheimer’s disease and other medical factors that have the potential to affect it.
The study was conducted by Brigham Young University in association with the University of Washington, the University of Cambridge and Aarhus University (Denmark).
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