NIH-supported compared the effects of standard versus intensive blood pressure control on cardiovascular health and mortality. More than 9,300 adults who were at least 50 years old and had a high risk for cardiovascular disease received either standard treatment, which lowered systolic blood pressure, the first of two numbers measured during an exam, to less than 140 mm Hg (<140 mm Hg), or intensive treatment to lower the same pressure reading below 120 mm Hg (<120 mm Hg) . The trial was ended early after initial results showed that 3.3 years of intensive treatment significantly reduced the rates of death and cardiovascular disease.
SPRINT MIND studied the effects these treatments had on the brain by measuring cognitive function and acquiring MRI scans on a subset of SPRINT participants. The researchers compared brain scans of 449 participants that were taken at enrollment and four years later. Intensive treatment significantly reduced white matter lesion accumulation in people who had a higher chance of experiencing this kind of damage because they had high blood pressure. There was also a slightly more loss of brain volume in the intensively treated group ( especially in males ) than those in the standard treatment. This loss was generally very small and of unclear clinical significance.
