Preeclampsia A Risk For Later Dementia

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Preeclampsia is marked by escalating and dangerous levels of high blood pressure with kidney, liver, and brain toxicity. Women experiencing it at the completion of their pregnancies are 2.6 times more likely to develop dementia over the following decade. French researchers report this startling association following their study of nearly 2 million pregnant women over the age of 30.

The risk of early-onset dementia was the highest for those women with previous hypertension, 4.8 fold higher, and for those developing preeclampsia before 34 weeks of gestation.

We already know that elevated blood pressures lead to brain damage in the form of strokes, but this study suggests that, even short of catastrophic paralysis and loss of higher brain function, high pressures drive more subtle cerebral dysfunction that relatively quickly manifests itself as dementia.

All prregnant women should monitor their own blood pressures at home to insure that the blood feeding their brains is arriving at acceptable and safe pressure levels.

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2819207?resultClick=3

#pregnancy #preeclampsia #dementia