CAN THE BLOOD-PRESSURE PREDICT COGNITIVE TASK-PERFORMANCE IN A HEALTHY POPULATION-SAMPLE

Objectives To study the relation between the blood pressure and the ne urocognitive function within the full adult age range in a large popul ation sample, Design A cross-sectional study of 936 healthy adults who were recruited from a register of family practices, stratified for ag e (24-81 years), sex, and occupational level, who took part in a medic al and neurocognitive test program, Methods The blood pressure status was studied in relation to five measures of cognitive ability, includi ng Verbal memory and speed of information processing, Other vascular r isk factors were treated as control variables and included smoking, al cohol intake, body mass index, and body fat distribution, The blood pr essure was measured five times using an automatic recording technique (with a Dinamap 8100 device). Results After adjustment for age, sex, a nd educational level in a hierarchical regression analysis, we found n o unequivocal association between the mean systolic and diastolic bloo d pressures (or any other studied vascular risk factor) and cognitive test performance both for the whole group and for the subgroup of subj ects who were not being administered antihypertensive medication and w hose medical history did not include cardiovascular events, Stratified analysis within four age levels revealed no age-specific associations between the blood pressure and the cognitive function, Subjects whose blood pressure was within the hypertensive range performed worse than did matched controls at letter digit copying, but not according to ot her cognitive measures. Conclusions With a population-based sample uns elected for blood pressure status we found no linear relationship betw een the actual blood pressure level and various aspects of cognitive p erformance. Prospective studies are needed to investigate the possibil ity that the systemic blood pressure load over time is associated with a decline in specific cognitive abilities.