Blood pressure and cognitive performance. The Framingham Study.

In 1976-1978, a battery of eight neuropsychologic tests were administered to 2,123 participants in the Framingham Study who were aged 55-89 years. Performance on each test was examined in relation to concurrently measured systolic and diastolic blood pressure while controlling for age, sex, education, antihypertensive medication, alcohol consumption, and smoking. Those with a diagnosis of stroke were excluded from the analysis. In the remaining sample of 2,032, neither blood pressure nor antihypertensive treatment was significantly associated with cognitive performance. Even after excluding persons on antihypertensive medication, blood pressure was still unrelated to cognitive performance. In contrast to other studies, the authors found no consistent relation between blood pressure and cognitive performance.