- Explain to interested patients that this study suggested an added benefit for centrally acting ACE inhibitors, which have already been proven to be effective antihypertensive agents.
- This study was published as an abstract and presented as a poster at a conference. These data and conclusions should be considered preliminary until they have been published in a peer-reviewed publication
SEATTLE, May 7 -- Treating hypertension with centrally active angiotensen enzyme inhibitors may have the added benefit of reducing the risk of cognitive decline, researchers here reported.
Compared with ACE-inhibitors that don't cross the blood-brain barrier, centrally active ACE inhibitors slowed the rate of cognitive decline by 50% (P =0.04), Kaycee Sink, M.D., M.A.S., of Wake Forest reported at the American Geriatrics Society meeting.
The finding emerged from a subset analysis of data collected by the Cardiovascular Health Study, a longitudinal study of risk factors of 5,888 persons older than 65 living in Forsyth County, N.C., Pittsburgh, and Washington Country, Md.
Dr. Sink and colleagues identified 1,074 participants who were free of dementia at baseline and who were being treated for hypertension. The mean age of the patients in the sample was 75 and 64% were women. The researchers analyzed six-years of follow-up data.
