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A new study warns that if you often feel dizzy, faint or light-headed after getting up, these symptoms could indicate greater risk of developing brain disease such as Parkinson's or dementia, and even an increased risk of death. The findings appeared in the online issue of the journal Neurology.
"Our study looked at delayed orthostatic hypotension, when the drop in blood pressure happens more than three minutes after standing or sitting up," said study author Christopher Gibbons from Harvard Medical School in Boston.
"Our findings suggest that more than half of people with the delayed form of this condition will go on to develop the more serious form of this disease," Gibbons noted.
For the study, researchers studied medical records of 165 people with an average age of 59 who completed nervous system testing and were followed for 10 years. Of those, 48 were diagnosed with delayed orthostatic hypotension, 42 had orthostatic hypotension and 75 did not have either condition. The study found that over 10 years, 54 percent of participants with delayed orthostatic hypotension progressed to orthostatic hypotension and 31 percent developed a degenerative brain disease such as Parkinson's or dementia with Lewy bodies.
The death rate over 10 years for those with the delayed condition who progressed to orthostatic hypotension was 50 percent.
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