Daily HealthBeat Tip

Blood pressure up, thinking down

From the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, I�m Ira Dreyfuss with HHS HealthBeat.

As blood pressure goes up, the ability to think seems to go down. A researcher found that in data on more than 1,500 people in upstate New York.

Michael Robbins of the University of Maine checked blood pressure readings against scores on tests of abilities such as abstract reasoning and recognizing patterns.

Robbins� study, which was supported by the National Institutes of Health, was in the journal Psychosomatic Medicine.

Robbins says his findings amount to another reason to keep blood pressure under control:

"High blood pressure is related to increased risk of heart disease and stroke. And this study, as well as a number of others, also indicate that high blood pressure is related to decrements in cognitive performance." (16 seconds)

Learn more at www.hhs.gov.

HHS HealthBeat is a production of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. I'm Ira Dreyfuss.

Last revised: January 18, 2005

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