Middle-age and older individuals who have a greater blood pressure reaction in response to   stress score lower on a number of tests of mental performance, independent of their resting blood pressure, according to research presented Wednesday.

high blood pressure is associated with worse mental performance, even among patients who have not suffered a Stroke and have no signs of dementia, Drs. Shari R. Waldstein and Leslie I. Katzel of the University of Maryland School of Medicine note in the journal Neurology.

High blood pressure reactivity could worsen mental performance through several mechanisms, they continue.

The researchers conducted the current study to determine whether blood pressure reactivity to stresses similar to those experienced in daily life had any association with mental performance.

The researchers evaluated 94 healthy men and women between 54 and 79 years old. Blood pressure reactivity was tested by having participants perform three different three-minute experimental tasks “designed to provoke negative emotions.”

Greater blood pressure reactivity to the stressful tasks was associated with worse performance on tests of memory and mental performance after accounting for possible influential factors such as education, resting blood pressure, anxiety levels, education and blood sugar levels, the researchers found.

Overall, blood pressure reactivity accounted for three percent to eight percent of variation in memory and mental performance, Waldstein and Katzel report.

“It is possible that stress reactivity that is revealed in elevated blood pressure is also expressed in a number of other physiologic systems,” thus ultimately leading to impaired mental function, the researchers write.

SOURCE: Neurology, May 24, 2005.