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Blood pressure can contribute to cognitive decline. To investigate whether blood pressure is associated with cerebral pathology, researchers combined longitudinal and postmortem data from three similarly designed, prospective studies of aging in late life involving 1288 individuals.
The mean and change in systolic blood pressure (SBP) and diastolic blood pressure (DBP) were determined annually. Mean follow-up was 8 years, and mean age at death was 88.6. Postmortem neuropathologic outcomes included chronic macro- and microinfarcts, vessel disease, and Alzheimer disease (AD) pathology. Mean SBP was 136 mm Hg at baseline, with an average annual decline of 0.8 mm Hg. Mean DBP was 72 mm Hg at baseline, with an average annual decline of 0.1 mm Hg.…