A team of international researchers conducted a study which found that hypertension may double an adult’s risk of developing epilepsy. In the journal Epilepsia these findings were published.
In the study of 2,986 US adults with an average age of 58 years, 55 new cases of epilepsy were acknowledged during an average follow-up of 19 years.
Hypertension, defined as the presence of elevated blood pressure or the use of antihypertensive medications, was linked to nearly two-fold higher vulnerability of epilepsy.
Apart from the participants with normal blood pressure on antihypertensive medications, hypertension was linked to a 2.44-times higher risk of epilepsy.
“Our study shows that hypertension, a common, modifiable, vascular risk factor, is an independent predictor of epilepsy in older age,” said co-lead author Maria Stefanidou, MD, MSc, of Boston University School of Medicine.
“Even though epidemiological studies can only show association and not causation, this observation may help identify subgroups of patients who will benefit from targeted, aggressive hypertension management and encourage the performance of dedicated clinical studies that will focus on early interventions to reduce the burden of epilepsy in older age,” Mara added
