Alzheimer's disease is a progressive degradation of the brain that renders patients unable to live independently in the later stages of the disease. Although the mechanism and pathogenesis of Alzheimer's are yet to be fully discovered, it is known that some risk factors can predispose a person.
Why does hypertension damage the brain?
To fully understand the connection between your brain and hypertension, it is worthwhile to spend some time discussing how the brain receives its blood supply. Like all other tissue in your body, the brain depends on a vascular highway to bring blood and nutrients to even the smallest crevices in the organ. Arteries are responsible for bringing all the blood into the brain, but the pressures in these large vessels are too great to allow the blood to nourish the tissues without causing significant damage. Arterioles are the structures better suited to allowing blood to release into the brain, because their membranes are thinner and allow blood to transfer into the tissues more effectively while also reducing the pressure on the vessels. These arterioles make up what is known as micro-circulation.
As you can begin to see already, pressure and the membrane thickness are two of the most important considerations to keep in mind when dealing with the blood supply of any organ system. Although consistently high blood pressure has the capability of damaging circulation throughout any part of your body, the most significant effects can be seen in your brain. This is due to the fact that the brain only has one main artery that is able to supply all the blood our brain needs to survive. In almost every other part of the body, multiple networks of arteries and arterioles can supply tissues with blood, so if one vessel is not working as efficiently, you will not see as much damage compared to organs that only rely on one main artery.
Hypertension is a condition of persistent high blood pressure. This can be caused by a number of things, but the most common reasons in the Western world are poor diet and obesity. Foods high in salt and sugar have the potential to damage the walls of your arteries and arterioles. This damage will gradually cause the walls to harden and for the pressure to increase throughout your body, which you may know already as your blood pressure.
How this damage can lead to Alzheimer's disease
As you may already imagine, as the blood supply begins to dwindle in the brain, there will be a natural progression to more serious conditions like Alzheimer's disease. Smaller blood vessels are the main source of energy and blood to the brain. When these vessels start to harden, it will become harder and harder for blood to seep out of the arterioles because the lining is less permeable. When this begins to occur, the tissue will suffer as a result.
Alzheimer's disease is marked by a simultaneous deterioration of multiple parts of the brain. Because the blood supply is weaker in multiple regions of the brain, this will accelerate the development of the disease. The phenomenon at work here is known as vascular dementia. This is often coupled with a diagnosis of moderate or even severe Alzheimer's disease.
If you were to have this type of dementia, it is often described as being a step-wise deterioration of mental functioning. What this means in more simplified terms is that patients will have a stable but noticeable decline in their ability to remember, their ability to recognize and to live independently. It will also usually occur in a short period of time and family members are often surprised at how much a loved one can change in a matter of only a few weeks.
If you find that your blood pressures are running a bit higher than recommended levels, (above 130/85 mmHg), it is time to start lifestyle modifications. This can entail things like reducing the amount of salt in your diet, eating more fruits and vegetables, and exercise but the most effective strategy by far is to reduce your body weight with cardiovascular exercises. Jogging, swimming and brisk walks are some of the best exercises to do in order to help improve your vascular functioning as well as shed some weight in order to improve your blood pressure. It is known that even a drop in weight of about five kilograms, (roughly 10 pounds), can drop pressures by about 10 mmHg. This is a much more substantial drop than you can expect with medication alone.
If you find that dieting and exercise do not reduce your blood pressure still, this is when medications come into play. B-blockers and ACE inhibitors are the best drugs on the market to achieve this drop in blood pressure but remember, the best result for you long-term will be to use these drugs temporarily and still try to achieve better blood pressure through dieting and exercise.