Could hypertension drugs help people with Alzheimer's?

Within the next 20 years it is expected the number of people with Alzheimer's disease in the UK will double from its current figure of half a million to one million. A new study has looked at whether certain types of drugs used to treat high blood pressure, also called hypertension, might have beneficial effects in reducing the number of new cases of Alzheimer's disease each year.

The team of researchers from the University of Bristol, UK, have looked at whether drugs already being used to treat hypertension, particularly ones that specifically reduce the activity of a biochemical pathway, called the renin angiotensin system, might reduce the occurrence of Alzheimer's and another common type of dementia called vascular dementia.

The study, conducted with the support from North Bristol NHS Trust and published on-line in the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease, stems from work by one of the team's members, Patrick Kehoe, Reader in Translational Dementia Research and co-leads the Dementia Research Group at Frenchay Hospital, Bristol, and a leading authority on the possible role of the renin angiotensin system in Alzheimer's.