High pressure during pregnancy is associated with dementia

HSPRIS – Reuters

Saturday, November 03

LONDON (Reuters) – Pregnant women with pre-eclampsia, accompanied by a dangerous rise in blood pressure, are three times more likely to develop dementia later than other women who have had no problems their pregnancy, the researchers said.

One of the main causes of pre-eclampsia is vasculitis, which occurs in 2 to 10% of cases, usually 20 weeks after conception.

In addition to blood pressure, preeclampsia can lead to abnormally high protein levels in the urine and fluid retention.

Danish researchers have discovered that more than a million Danish women had been exposed to vascular dementia, which would result from a series of simple strokes or lack of blood reaching the brain.

The incidence of Alzheimer's disease, a different type of dementia, was only slightly higher than that of women without pre-eclampsia.

Previous research has linked birth toxicity, cognitive impairment, and brain changes in the first year of pregnancy, the research team said in notes to the BMG.

Women who are exposed to pre-eclampsia are more likely to have heart disease, stroke, high blood pressure and diabetes, they said.

"We have gathered enough evidence to assert that the effects of preeclampsia on women's health are not limited to pregnancy," said lead author Heather Boyd of the Statensarm Institute in Copenhagen. .

To determine the links between pre-eclampsia and dementia, researchers used data from the National Surveillance Registry for 117,800 women who had children in Denmark between 1978 and 2015. More than four percent between they had one or more pregnancies during pregnancy.

The researchers then examined women's history for an average of 21 years. Even after adjusting for other factors that may affect the risk of dementia, including heart disease and diabetes, the researchers found that the risk of dementia in old age (after age 65) was six and a half times higher in women infected with pregnancy.

Women with pre-eclampsia were twice as likely to die of dementia at an early stage. They also have a 50% chance of developing Alzheimer's disease and 40% more risk of developing dementia.

More than once, the infection is related to preeclampsia by drowning in a single pregnancy.