Brain Health Homework: Check your blood pressure
Reduce dementia risk by staying on top of these numbers.
Hello, brain health ambassadors. Today we’re digging into one of the simplest ways to protect your brain: Get your blood pressure checked. Having high blood pressure is one of the most common modifiable risk factors for Alzheimer’s and other types of dementia. Even mildly elevated blood pressure can put your brain at risk, so it’s important to track these numbers and actively keep them in check.
Perhaps in years past your health care provider didn’t worry about your blood pressure unless it was consistently over 140/90. Guidelines for normal blood pressure have been drifting down. One of the reasons: brain health. Your brain requires robust blood flow delivered by a health array of blood vessels. Keeping blood pressure in normal/low ranges at mid-life has been proven to reduce the risk of dementia later down the line. This review article goes into the mechanisms behind this connection.
The latest definition of high blood pressure
The American College of Cardiology and the American Heart Association divide blood pressure into four general categories.
Normal blood pressure. Blood pressure is 120/80 mm Hg or lower.
Elevated blood pressure. The top number ranges from 120 to 129 mm Hg and the bottom number is below, not above, 80 mm Hg.
Stage 1 hypertension. The top number ranges from 130 to 139 mm Hg or the bottom number is between 80 and 89 mm Hg.
Stage 2 hypertension. The top number is 140 mm Hg or higher or the bottom number is 90 mm Hg or higher.
High blood pressure is a modifiable risk factor for dementia
Modifiable risk factors are lifestyle habits and medical conditions that you have the power to change. Elevated blood pressure is a great example because there are lots of ways to treat it, such as physical exercise, weight loss, following a Mediterranean-style diet that is lower in salt, and medication. The Lancet Commission, a group of Alzheimer’s experts, convenes every few years to update the list of science-based modifiable risk factors for dementia. The latest update of their guidelines, published in 2020, added 3 new factors bringing the list to a total of 12.
Do you know the 12 modifiable risk factors for dementia?
(Find a list at the end of this newsletter.)