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Age Wise
High Blood Pressure Shrinks and Ages Your Brain
Two new reasons to check your blood pressure now, even if you’re young
Nearly half of U.S. adults have high blood pressure, many without realizing it amid a new definition of what’s “high.” So I’m understandably worried about you, given the risk for heart attacks, strokes, and dementia that are associated with elevated blood pressure.
Have you checked yours lately?
If not, two new brain-scan studies just might give you the necessary nudge.
Smaller brains
The first study found that people ages 35 to 54 with high blood pressure have smaller brains than those with normal blood pressure. The brain shrinkage was most pronounced among people who’d been diagnosed with high blood pressure before age 35. During a dozen years of follow-up in the 22,798 participants, those who’d had high blood pressure between ages 35 and 44 were 61% more likely to develop dementia.
The results add to other research linking high blood pressure to an elevated risk of developing dementia (though it’s important to note that direct cause-and-effect has not been established).
The findings suggest that preventing and controlling high blood pressure in early adulthood can help prevent dementia later on, the researchers conclude in the journal Hypertension.
Older brains
The second study reflects a growing realization that elevated blood pressure doesn’t even have to be diagnostically high to be bad for us.
People ages 44 to 76 with high blood pressure have brains that appear, on average, six months older than the brains of people of the same age with optimal blood pressure, scientists report in the journal Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience. Importantly, this accelerated brain aging occurs even in people with “normal” blood pressure that is above the optimal level, the scientists found.
And this isn’t about “old people.” These deteriorations — including dying brain cells, shrinking brain parts, and lost connections between the parts — seem to start when people have elevated blood pressure in their twenties or thirties…
