A new study shows that even a small reduction in systolic blood pressure can help slow down the progression of cerebral small vessel disease, reducing the risk of cognitive decline and dementia.

for some added context, this is a posthoc analysis of the SPRINT trial that was started in 2010.

here is the report of the primary outcome, which was a composite of “myocardial infarction, other acute coronary syndromes, stroke, heart failure, or death from cardiovascular causes”

[A Randomized Trial of Intensive versus Standard Blood-Pressure Control (2015)](https://www.nejm.org/doi/abs/10.1056/NEJMoa1511939?referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fscholar.google.com%2F)

“The intervention was stopped early after a median follow-up of 3.26 years owing to a significantly lower rate of the primary composite outcome in the intensive-treatment group than in the standard-treatment group”

“Rates of serious adverse events of hypotension, syncope, electrolyte abnormalities, and acute kidney injury or failure, but not of injurious falls, were higher in the intensive-treatment group than in the standard-treatment group.”