How to Keep Your Brain Healthy in Seven Steps | By Benjamin Ryan | Virtually Modern Medicine @Pharmative
Want to keep your brain in shape? It starts with the heart. That’s because the benefits of maintaining a healthy cardiovascular system very likely extend to the old noggin as well.
With this in mind, the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association (AHA) has developed a tidy set of recommendations of lifestyle choices individuals can make to protect their brain health and help keep the organ working well.
As the baby boom generation ages into the senior years, dementia looms as an increasingly major concern for society. An estimated 75 million Americans will suffer from such severely compromised brain function by 2030.
The question of brain health is hardly limited to Alzheimer’s disease. The cognitive impairment that comes from poor brain health may affect any of the multitude of functions the awesome organ accomplishes. These include paying attention, receiving and recognizing information drawn from the five senses, learning and remembering, communicating, solving problems and making decisions, moving the body, and regulating emotions.
The AHA tips, called Life’s Simple 7 and published in the journal Stroke, are geared around the importance of ensuring adequate blood flow to the heart and brain alike. As many people age, they experience a condition known as atherosclerosis, in which blood vessels become narrowed or blocked through the buildup of fatty deposits on the walls. This can lead to heart attack and heart failure, as well as to strokes or so-called mini-strokes that can contribute to a form of mental decline called vascular cognitive impairment, or vascular dementia.
Philip Gorelick, MD, MPH, is the chair of the panel that created the new brain health tips and executive medical director of Mercy Health Hauenstein Neurosciences in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He says the collection of 182 studies his group reviewed as the basis of their recommendations “convincingly demonstrates that the same risk factors that cause atherosclerosis are also major contributors to late-life cognitive impairment and Alzheimer’s disease.”
The Life’s Simple 7 tips include:
1. Managing blood pressure. Keep the systolic figure below 120 and the diastolic figure below 80.
2. Controlling cholesterol. Keep it below 200.
3. Keeping blood sugar normal. A fasting blood glucose test result should be below 100.
4. Getting and staying physically active.
5. Eating a healthy diet.
6. Losing extra weight. Keep your BMI below 25.
7. Not smoking.
Gorelick and his colleagues say that ideally people will follow these tips as early in life as possible, since atherosclerosis can actually begin in childhood. Additionally, they point to brain health guidance from the Alzheimer’s Association. Outside of counseling individuals to control cardiovascular disease risk factors in order to protect their brains, that group stresses the importance of ongoing education, engaging socially, getting proper sleep, maintaining mental health, protecting against brain injury, and practicing mental challenges such as puzzles, games or artistic endeavors.
Press release: https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2017-09/aha-sst090517.php
Sources: (1) https://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/educational/lose_wt/BMI/bmicalc.htm; (2) http://www.alz.org/brain-health/10_ways-to-love-your-brain.asp
TAGS: #BrainHealth #Heart #VirtuallyModernMedicine @Pharmative
Want to keep your brain in shape? It starts with the heart. That’s because the benefits of maintaining a healthy cardiovascular system very likely extend to the old noggin as well.
With this in mind, the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association (AHA) has developed a tidy set of recommendations of lifestyle choices individuals can make to protect their brain health and help keep the organ working well.
As the baby boom generation ages into the senior years, dementia looms as an increasingly major concern for society. An estimated 75 million Americans will suffer from such severely compromised brain function by 2030.
The question of brain health is hardly limited to Alzheimer’s disease. The cognitive impairment that comes from poor brain health may affect any of the multitude of functions the awesome organ accomplishes. These include paying attention, receiving and recognizing information drawn from the five senses, learning and remembering, communicating, solving problems and making decisions, moving the body, and regulating emotions.
The AHA tips, called Life’s Simple 7 and published in the journal Stroke, are geared around the importance of ensuring adequate blood flow to the heart and brain alike. As many people age, they experience a condition known as atherosclerosis, in which blood vessels become narrowed or blocked through the buildup of fatty deposits on the walls. This can lead to heart attack and heart failure, as well as to strokes or so-called mini-strokes that can contribute to a form of mental decline called vascular cognitive impairment, or vascular dementia.
Philip Gorelick, MD, MPH, is the chair of the panel that created the new brain health tips and executive medical director of Mercy Health Hauenstein Neurosciences in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He says the collection of 182 studies his group reviewed as the basis of their recommendations “convincingly demonstrates that the same risk factors that cause atherosclerosis are also major contributors to late-life cognitive impairment and Alzheimer’s disease.”
The Life’s Simple 7 tips include:
1. Managing blood pressure. Keep the systolic figure below 120 and the diastolic figure below 80.
2. Controlling cholesterol. Keep it below 200.
3. Keeping blood sugar normal. A fasting blood glucose test result should be below 100.
4. Getting and staying physically active.
5. Eating a healthy diet.
6. Losing extra weight. Keep your BMI below 25.
7. Not smoking.
Gorelick and his colleagues say that ideally people will follow these tips as early in life as possible, since atherosclerosis can actually begin in childhood. Additionally, they point to brain health guidance from the Alzheimer’s Association. Outside of counseling individuals to control cardiovascular disease risk factors in order to protect their brains, that group stresses the importance of ongoing education, engaging socially, getting proper sleep, maintaining mental health, protecting against brain injury, and practicing mental challenges such as puzzles, games or artistic endeavors.
Press release: https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2017-09/aha-sst090517.php
Sources: (1) https://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/educational/lose_wt/BMI/bmicalc.htm; (2) http://www.alz.org/brain-health/10_ways-to-love-your-brain.asp
TAGS: #BrainHealth #Heart #VirtuallyModernMedicine @Pharmative
One wonders, though, how effective such instructional lists are at actually spurring health-promoting behavior change.
@Ben Ryan Excellent point. I'm hopeful that smartphones and watches will provide the necessary biofeedback to be part of the answer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuXa5GdxlJs
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youtube.com
Pharmative, a medical education and media company. What healthy conversations would you like to start?
Seven steps to a healthy brain and life! Stay healthy, Dr. J.