High Blood Ages Your Brain Faster Than Your Actual Age

An active and healthy brain is essential to a good life. As we get older, our brains also age and change form in measurable ways. Sometimes, the brain can even age faster than our bodies. For example, researchers have found that after age 40, the brain starts to shrink in size at a rate of at least 5% every 10 years and declines much faster for people over 70.

An aging brain becomes limited in its ability to perform its functions of controlling and regulating vital activities like breathing, including powering our cognition.

Your chronological age (the number of years you’ve lived) isn’t the same as your biological age (how old your body system says you are based on key biomarkers). For most people, their biological age is way higher than their actual age, which explains why some people can be young but feels very old and vice versa.

In the same way, brain scientists believe your brain age is usually different from your actual age. The age of your brain is measured by using data from fMRI scans to calculate how old your brain is and then comparing it to your calendar age. This estimate is called “brain age gap estimation (BrainAGE)”

If your calculated brain age is higher than your chronological age, then in all likelihood, you’ll most likely experience reduced mental and physical fitness. People with high brain age estimates have been found to have a weaker grip on objects, lower lung capacity, slower walking speed, including cognitive impairments.

Blood Pressure in the Brain

Scientists have undertaken several studies to understand the set of conditions or behaviors that could make the brain go through a faster or slower aging process. They discovered that several lifestyle choices can have a dramatic impact on the brain.

However, new evidence shows that a person’s blood pressure is a major risk factor for premature brain aging.

The study finds that beyond a certain threshold, a higher blood pressure causes the brain to age and this impairs cognitive functioning.

In the study, researchers looked at brain scans of participants between the age of 44 to 76. Then, each participant had several brain scans and blood pressure measurements taken over a 12-year period. The result made it clear that blood pressure can tip the scales of our brains’ health.

Specifically, high blood pressure puts your brain at risk of accelerated aging. On the contrary, maintain an optimal blood pressure level can help the brain stay 6 months younger than your actual age.

The study also estimates that every time your blood pressure rises by 10 mmHg above the acceptable threshold, your brain ages by about 51 days.

In the same vein, another study had researchers analyze longitudinal data for 34,349 participants in various large US cohorts. The result also showed that differences in cumulative blood pressure levels contribute to differences in cognitive decline at an older age. In other words, the persistent experience of hypertension could result in seriously impaired cognitive functioning down the line such as dementia, Alzheimer’s disease, schizophrenia, and so on.

Yet, high blood pressure or hypertension has become a common primary diagnosis, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It affects nearly 86 million adults who are 20 years and above in the US alone and is considered a major risk factor for stroke, myocardial infarction, vascular disease, chronic kidney disease and accounts for one new case of dementia every 4 seconds, according to the World Health Organization.

What’s Optimal Blood Pressure

If high blood pressure is bad for brain health, what’s the acceptable level and how can you maintain it over time?

We’ve already seen that an optimal blood pressure level can keep the brain at least six months younger than a person’s chronological age.

According to The American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association (ACC/AHA) guidelines 2017, optimal blood pressure is considered to be between 90/60mmHg and 120/80mmHg. High blood pressure is between 130/80mmHg and 139/89 mmHg.

So, people who maintained optimal blood pressure levels in early adulthood have been found to have slower brain age process and in turn keep their brains younger.

An important takeaway from this study is that the thinking that the brain becomes unhealthy much later in life is not completely true. As Professor Donna K. Arnette in the department of epidemiology at the University of Kentucky College of Public Health pointed out:

"These results indicate that it’s very important to know your blood pressure level, even in young adults. If you are found to be hypertensive, you should seek treatment early.”

The reason is that people with hypertension in their thirties and forties may end up having a higher risk of dementia later in life. Thus, it’s important to adopt lifestyle and diet changes early on in life to keep healthy blood pressure and ensure optimal brain health.

How to Keep Your Blood Pressure at Normal Levels

Maintaining healthy blood pressure comes down to simply taking the actions associated with lower blood pressure and they are as follows:

• A healthy diet; As much as possible, minimize eating of processed and refined foods and instead focus more on diets that are rich in whole grains, fruits, vegetables, and low-fat dairy products. This eating plan is known as the “Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension” (DASH) diet.
• Engaging in regular exercise: Regular physical activity — such as 150 minutes a week, or about 30 minutes most days of the week — can lower your blood pressure by about 5 to 8 mmHg if you have high blood pressure.
• Avoiding long periods of sedentary behaviors: A sedentary lifestyle is a major risk factor for heart and blood vessel disease. People who are less active and less physically fit have a 30-50% greater frequency of hypertension than their more active peers.
• Managing work stress: Chronic stress contribute to accelerated blood pressure, especially if you cope with stress by resorting to eating unhealthy food, drinking alcohol, or smoking. Take some time to think about what causes you to feel stressed, such as work, family, finances or illness. Once you know what’s causing your stress, consider how you can eliminate or reduce stress.
• Maintaining good sleep hygiene: The less you sleep, the higher the chances of your BP going up. If you’re experiencing high blood pressure, not sleeping well could worsen the case.
• Quit smoking behavior: Each cigarette you smoke increases your blood pressure for many minutes after you finish. Stopping smoking helps your blood pressure return to normal.

Final Thought

The brain is an important but delicate organ of the body and it is central to our memory, reasoning, and other cognitive functions. An aging brain undermines your ability to live the life you want.

Thus, you can protect the brain from early wear and tear by not just adopting better lifestyle choices but also by managing your blood pressure levels in a way that does not impact the brain negatively.