January 24, 2013
A new study reveals that high blood pressure poses a risk to the brain long before it experiences the effects of old age. Neurologists at UC Davis have produced research that shows having blood pressure that is even a little high while in one’s twenties and thirties means risking damage to the structural integrity of the brain. What’s more, this damage may be evident as early as forty.
While the gray matter volume and white matter integrity of the brain both decline with age, authors of this study found that each spike in a subject’s blood pressure caused these indicators of brain aging to become more pronounced. Learn more about the effects of blood pressure on the brain in this article from the L.A. Times.