Alzheimer's patients with diabetes or high blood pressure likely to die earlier

New research has revealed that people with Alzheimer's disease who also have diabetes or high blood pressure are significantly more likely to die sooner than people who only have Alzheimer's disease.

The study of 323 people revealed that people who had both Alzheimer's disease and diabetes were twice as likely to die sooner than non-diabetic people with Alzheimer's. People with both Alzheimer's disease and high blood pressure were two-and-a-half times more likely to die sooner than those with Alzheimer's disease who had normal blood pressure.

Helzner EP, Scarmeas N, Cosentino S, Tang MX, Schupf N, Stern Y. Survival in Alzheimer disease A multiethnic, population-based study of incident cases. Neurology 2008;71:1489-1495.