For brain health later in life, keep your blood pressure down while you’re young.
That’s the takeaway message from a study by University of California, Davis researchers, who found that high blood pressure in people in their 30s is associated with worse brain health in the seventh decade of life.
The researchers did magnetic resonance imaging on two groups of people: Those who had either high or normal blood pressure in their 30s. Those with high blood pressure earlier in life had significantly worse white-matter integrity and smaller regional brain volumes. Both of those factors are associated with dementia.
Blood-pressure data from more than 400 people in two health studies conducted between 1964 and 1985 was paired with MRI images of the same patients between 2017 and 2022. A significant drop in the brain’s gray matter volume and biomarkers for neurodegeneration were seen in the people with high blood pressure. A crucial measure of brain connectivity was also found to be lower among those with hypertension.
The association was also more prominent in men than women, although researchers are not exactly sure why there was a difference between genders.
The researchers also noted a compelling upside to the findings: Despite being a risk factor for dementia, high blood pressure is also very treatable. Controlling blood pressure as a young adult is one way to possibly improve the odds of not getting dementia later on.
For people in their 30s, the findings could be a call to action. Exercise regularly, eat a healthy diet, try to lose weight — and don’t touch the salt shaker.