Five years of blood-pressure lowering with amlodipine, compared with atenolol, reduces stroke risk for the next two decades in patients with cardiovascular risk factors, researchers have shown.

But despite this benefit, their study failed to find that the early intervention reduced dementia risk.

The UK investigators used electronic health records to determine whether participants in the ASCOT trial, which recruited between 1998 and 2002, derived long-term benefit from their trial medications.

The original trial had a 2×2 design with participants (mean age 64, 81% male, mean baseline BP 162/92mmHg) in one arm randomised to either atenolol or amlodipine and in the other arm to atorvastatin or placebo.