High Blood Pressure in Mid-30s Can Cause Brain Health Risk

One study indicates that people in their mid-thirties must monitor their blood pressure to protect the health of their brains later in life.

He discovered that the "window of opportunity" to protect brain health extended until the early 1950s.

After 500 people born in 1946, he established a link between early-mid-life hypertension and subsequent damage to blood vessels and narrowing of the brain.

According to experts, high blood pressure in the "critical period" of the 30s and 40s could "speed up the damage" to the brain.

This is not the first time that high blood pressure in the middle age has been associated with an increased risk of dementia, but scientists wanted to know more about when and how this could be done produce.

Throughout this study, published in Lancet Neurology, participants had their blood pressure measured and underwent brain scans.

An increase in blood pressure between 36 and 43 years was associated with a narrowing of the brain.

& # 39; Accelerated damage & # 39;

Everyone's brain decreases a bit with age, but it is more pronounced in people with neurodegenerative diseases such as vascular dementia.

And while those who have been studied have no evidence of cognitive impairment, researchers say that brain shrinkage usually precedes it – so they will monitor people in the study over the next few years for signs.

High blood pressure between 43 and 53 years was also related to more evidence of blood vessel damage or "mini-stroke" in people over 70 years of age.

Professor Jonathan Schott, a clinical neurologist at Queen Square's Institute of Neurology at UCL, led the research.

Blood pressure, even in their thirties, could affect brain health four decades later Surveillance and interventions to optimize brain health later in life need to be targeted at least at the beginning of life . "

Professor Schott told the BBC: "NHS health checks are currently offered at age 40 and participation is at most 50%, and our data suggest that blood pressure should be measured much earlier."

Paul Leeson, a professor of cardiovascular medicine at Oxford University, said: "We have known for some time that people with high blood pressure tend to have a different brain structure later in life. life.

"What doctors have debated is whether the treatment of high blood pressure in young people actually prevents these brain changes.

"The alternative, and this is what we tend to do now, is to wait until later in life to start taking high blood pressure seriously, because we know that at that time, the The most serious brain changes are definitely developing.

"These findings support the idea that there may be critical periods in life, for example in their thirties or forties, when periods of high blood pressure accelerate brain damage."

Dr. Carol Routledge, Director of Research at Alzheimer's Research UK, said: "High blood pressure in midlife is one of the most important risk factors for dementia in lifestyle , and we have the control to monitor and manage it easily.

"Research already suggests that a more aggressive treatment of high blood pressure in recent years could improve the brain health of older generations today.

"We must continue to rely on this idea in detecting and managing high blood pressure, even for people of early age."