The association of age at diagnosis of hypertension with brain structure and incident dementia in the UK Biobank

Little is known about whether the association of hypertension with brain volume and dementia is modified by an individual's age at their diagnosis of hypertension. Our analysis was based on the UK Biobank with baseline data collected between 2006 and 2010. Brain magnetic resonance imaging was used to measure brain volumes between 2014 and 2019. Dementia was ascertained using hospital inpatient, mortality, and self-reported data until 2021. We randomly selected a control participant for each hypertensive participant stratified by hypertension diagnosis age using propensity score. The cohort comprised 11 399 individuals with hypertension and 11 399 controls for the brain volume analysis and 124 053 individuals with hypertension and 124 053 controls for the dementia analysis. Individuals with hypertension diagnosed at ages