Relationship between antihypertensive medications and cognitive impairment: Part I. review of human studies and clinical trials
File(s)
Author(s)
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Purpose of review:
There is an established association between hypertension and increased risk of poor cognitive performance and dementia including Alzheimer’s disease; however, associations between antihypertensive medications (AHMs) and dementia risk are less consistent. An increased interest in AHM has resulted in expanding publications; however, none of the recent reviews are comprehensive. Our extensive review includes 15 observational and randomized controlled trials (RCTs) published over the last 5 years, assessing the relationship between AHM and cognitive impairment.
Recent findings:
All classes of AHM showed similar result patterns in human studies with the majority of study results reporting point estimates below one and only a small number of studies (N = 15) reporting statistically significant results in favor of a specific class.
Summary:
Only a small number of studies reported statistically significant results in favor of a specific class of AHM. Methodological limitations of the studies prevent definitive conclusions. Further work is now needed to evaluate the class of AHM and cognitive outcomes in future RCTs, with a particular focus on the drugs with the promising results in both animals and human observational studies.
There is an established association between hypertension and increased risk of poor cognitive performance and dementia including Alzheimer’s disease; however, associations between antihypertensive medications (AHMs) and dementia risk are less consistent. An increased interest in AHM has resulted in expanding publications; however, none of the recent reviews are comprehensive. Our extensive review includes 15 observational and randomized controlled trials (RCTs) published over the last 5 years, assessing the relationship between AHM and cognitive impairment.
Recent findings:
All classes of AHM showed similar result patterns in human studies with the majority of study results reporting point estimates below one and only a small number of studies (N = 15) reporting statistically significant results in favor of a specific class.
Summary:
Only a small number of studies reported statistically significant results in favor of a specific class of AHM. Methodological limitations of the studies prevent definitive conclusions. Further work is now needed to evaluate the class of AHM and cognitive outcomes in future RCTs, with a particular focus on the drugs with the promising results in both animals and human observational studies.
Date Issued
2016-08-05
Date Acceptance
2016-08-01
Citation
Current Hypertension Reports, 2016, 18
ISSN
1534-3111
Publisher
Current Medicine Group
Journal / Book Title
Current Hypertension Reports
Volume
18
Copyright Statement
© The Author(s) 2016. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.
Subjects
Pharmacology And Pharmaceutical Sciences
Publication Status
Published
Article Number
ARTN 67