There are almost eight million Brits currently living with heart disease or a related condition, which are the most common causes of death in the UK, accounting for more than one in four of all deaths. Because of this, heart and cholesterol medication have become widespread, particularly among older people.
Being prescribed beta blockers or statins for high blood pressure or cholesterol is a common experience for many as they reach their middle ages, with tens of millions regularly taking these types of drugs. But new research is showing that these common treatments might have other unexpected benefits.
Scientists examining the commonly noted relationship between forms of dementia and cardiovascular diseases have uncovered that people who take heart medication for a sustained period of time could see their dementia risk drop by as much as 24 per cent. Published in the journal ‘Alzheimer’s & Dementia’, the study’s lead author Professor Mozhu Ding described: “We can see a clear link between long-term use – five years or more – of these drugs and reduced risk of dementia in older age.”
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Professor Ding’s team at the Karolinska Institutet surveyed around 88,000 people in Sweden over the age of 70 who had been diagnosed with dementia between 2011 and 2016, while using a control group of 880,000 to fine tune their results. They then cross-referenced this with information from the country’s register of drug prescriptions.
They found that people who had used cholesterol medication, antihypertensive drugs, diuretics, or blood thinners had between a four and 24 per cent lower risk of developing dementia – which is the other major recorded cause of death in the UK.
However, it was not all positive findings for all heart-related medications, with a noted higher risk of dementia in those who were taking anti-platelet medication to prevent strokes and blood clots. Medical News reported that this could be because “these drugs increase the risk of microbleeds in the brain, which are associated with cognitive decline.”
While some associations between common heart medications and lowering dementia risk have been known, this study has established a broader pattern among people taking a variety of similar medicines. A researcher in the study said: “Previous studies have focused on individual drugs and specific patient groups but in this study, we take a broader approach.
“We currently have no cure for dementia, so it’s important to find preventive measures.”
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