High blood pressure meds may lower the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease, according to a new study that suggests people with hypertension are far less likely to be diagnosed with the most common form of dementia.

"It's likely that this protective effect is coming from antihypertensive drugs," said John Kauwe, associate professor of biology at Brigham Young University, who helped conduct the new research published in the Public Library of Science journal PLOS Medicine. "These drugs are already [federally] approved. We need to take a serious look at them for Alzheimer's prevention."
The findings are based on an analysis of genetic data from 17,008 individuals with Alzheimer's and 37,154 people without the disease.

BYU researchers — who collaborated with experts from the University of Cambridge, Aarhus University in Denmark, and the University of Washington — looked for links between Alzheimer's disease and a number of health conditions, including diabetes, obesity, and high cholesterol. But they only found a significant association between higher blood pressure and reduced Alzheimer's risk.

"Our results are the opposite of what people might think," said researcher Paul Crane, a University of Washington associate professor of internal medicine. "It may be that high blood pressure is protective, or it may be that something that people with high blood pressure are exposed to more often, such as antihypertensive medication, is protecting them from Alzheimer's disease."