Low blood pressure (BP) is associated with frailty in older adults. Our aim was to explore how BP predicts transitions between frailty states.
We used data from the Lausanne cohort Lc65+, a population-based cohort of older adults randomly drawn from a population registry in Switzerland, in 2004, 2009 and 2014. BP was measured using a clinically validated oscillometric automated device and frailty was defined using Fried's phenotype, every 3 years. We used an illness-death discrete multi-state Markov model to estimate hazard ratios of forward and backward transitions between frailty states (outcome) in relation to BP categories (predictor of interest) with adjustment for sex, age and antihypertensive medication (other predictors).
Among 4200 participants aged 65-70 years (58% female) at baseline, 70% were non-frail, 27% pre-frail and 2.0% frail. Over an average follow-up of 5.8 years, 2422 transitions were observed, with 1575 (65%) forward and 847 (35%) backward. Compared with systolic BP (SBP) <130 mmHg, the hazard ratio (95% confidence interval) of the transition from non-frail to pre-frail was 0.86 (0.74 to 1.00) for SBP 130-150 mmHg, and 0.89 (0.74 to 1.06) for SBP ≥150 mmHg. Compared with SBP <130 mmHg, the hazard ratio of the transition from pre-frail to frail was 0.71 (0.50 to 1.01) for SBP 130-150 mmHg, and 0.90 (0.62 to 1.32) for SBP ≥150 mmHg. Diastolic BP was a weaker predictor of forward transitions.
BP categories had no strong relationship with either forward transitions or backward transitions in frailty states. If our findings are confirmed with greater precision and assuming a causal relationship, they would suggest that there is no well-defined optimal BP level to prevent frailty among older adults.