Abstract
BACKGROUND: We evaluated the cross-sectional relationship of blood pressure (BP) components with cognitive impairment after adjusting for potential confounders. METHODS: Reasons for Geographic and Racial Differences in Stroke (REGARDS) is a national, longitudinal population cohort evaluating stroke risk in 30,228 black and white men and women >or=45 years old. During the in-home visit, BP measurements were taken as the average of 2 measurements using a standard aneroid sphygmomanometer. Excluding participants with prior stroke or TIA, the present analysis included 19,836 participants (enrolled from December 2003 to March 2007) with complete baseline physical and cognitive evaluations. Incremental logistic models examined baseline relationships between BP components (systolic blood pressure [SBP], diastolic blood pressure [DBP], and pulse pressure [PP]) and impaired cognitive status (score of