At the University of Utah, a groundbreaking study is unraveling the enigmatic relationship between high blood pressure and the onset of dementia. Researchers are meticulously analyzing about 40,000 blood samples that could reveal the future of Alzheimer's disease and related cognitive declines, according to At The U. The study, anchored by a substantial $21.6 million National Institutes of Health grant, aims to pinpoint precisely how hypertension damages brain cells and whether managing it could potentially stave off dementia.
The blood samples, locked in a deep freeze, span four years of intensive research from the SPRINT trial, one of the most extensive hypertension studies in the U.S. Adam Bress, a principal investigator on the study and professor of population health sciences at University of Utah Health, told the university's news service that they intend to decode the mechanisms by which lowering blood pressure more intensively could promote brain health. The researchers are especially curious about whether this could affect pathways related to Alzheimer's, like protein plaques and tangles, or if it's more a matter of the blood vessels themselves.
The study will leverage cutting-edge technology to explore these connections, a newly identified blood biomarker that can diagnose Alzheimer’s brain changes almost as accurately as a PET scan or cerebrospinal fluid analysis. These blood biomarkers will be matched against a range of health data to ascertain if treatments for high blood pressure still prove effective, even for individuals with a genetic predisposition to dementia.
Rachel Hess, M.D., highlighted the importance of the biobank housed at the U of U, which allows for this kind of retrospective and prospective analysis. "This biobank lets us query samples that could be over a decade old and answer new questions with new biomarkers to gain novel insights into how hypertension control can change the course of aging for millions of Americans," said Hess, as per At The U.
Jeremy Pruzin, another principal study investigator and behavioral neurologist at Banner Alzheimer’s Institute, shared that they aim to help individuals by identifying how and in whom hypertension poses the highest dementia risk. "We hope that the results of the study will help people by contributing to our understanding of how and in whom hypertension confers the highest risk for dementia," Pruzin revealed, as obtained by At The U.
