Taking beta-blockers may help reduce the risk of dementia according to a new study. Dr. Lon White of the Pacific Health Research and Education Institute in Honolulu, Hawaii, USA, who will present the data during the 65th Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Neurology in San Diego in March, described the discovery as ‘fascinating’. He and his colleagues discovered the relationship between beta-blockers and dementia after studying 174 Japanese and U.S. elderly patients that were incorporated in the study of Honolulu-Asia Aging.

Postmortem studies revealed that all the 610 participants had hypertension or were receiving treatment of this disorder with medication. Among the 350 that had been treated, only 15% were taking a beta-blocker, 18% were prescribed a beta-blocker plus one or more different drugs and the others received other drugs for blood pressure treatment. While any type of blood pressure treatment was better than none, the researchers found that men who took beta blockers to treat only blood pressure had fewer brain abnormalities that were not treated but might have needed treatment had their hypertension received other drugs for treatment. 

The brains of participants who received beta-blockers showed a reduction in the number of brain abnormalities, including two types of brain injuries: those that indicate Alzheimer’s disease and micro bleeds. The men who had taken beta-blockers alone or in combination with another drug to treat blood pressure had significantly lower shrinkage in their brains. “As the number of people with Alzheimer’s disease will increase significantly as our population ages, it is increasingly important to identify factors that could delay or prevent the disease,” said Dr. White. “These results are very exciting, especially because beta blockers are a common treatment of hypertension.” 

Source: Medcenter.com, el portal médico líder de Latinoamérica

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