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Brain Health Affected by Hypertension, Diabetes, Obesity and Smoking

by Dr. Lakshmi Venkataraman on March 11, 2019 at 4:17 PM
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Highlights:

Risk factors such as smoking, obesity, diabetes and hypertension that are known to cause blood vessel damage and heart disease can affect brain structure and cause poor brain health as well according to a recent study led by Dr Simon Cox, a senior research associate at the Centre for Cognitive Ageing and Cognitive Epidemiology at the University of Edinburgh (UK).


The findings of the study appear in the European Heart Journal.

How These Common Risk Factors Affect Brain Health

The study team hoped to determine the association between the occurrence of risk factors such as diabetes, hypertension, smoking, high blood cholesterol, high pulse pressures and obesity (evaluated by body mass index (BMI) and waist-hip ratio)and damage to brain structure and health.

‘The more number of risk factors a person has, the poorer his brain health. Patients with the most number of risk factors showed around 18ml, or nearly 3%, less volume of grey matter, and one-and-a-half times unhealthier white matter (the brain�s connective tissue) compared to patients who had the least number of risk factors.’

All the above conditions have been known to reduce blood supply to the brain, potentially leading to reduced blood flow and changes associated with dementia and Alzheimer's disease.

The findings of the study do suggest an association between smoking, diabetes, and hypertension with poor brain health. Appropriate lifestyle changes can prevent or control these conditions and improve brain health and overall health outcome.

Dr Cox said, "The large UK Biobank sample allowed us to take a comprehensive look at how each factor was related to many aspects of brain structure. We found that higher vascular risk is linked to worse brain structure, even in adults who were otherwise healthy. These links were just as strong for people in middle-age as they were for those in later life, and the addition of each risk factor increased the size of the association with worse brain health".

Future Research Plans

Summary

Common risk factors such as smoking, diabetes, obesity and hypertension can cause brain damage and loss of brain matter. Making suitable lifestyle changes and keeping these risk factors under control is beneficial for brain health.

Reference:
  1. Associations between vascular risk factors and brain MRI indices in UK Biobank - (http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/eurheartj/ehz100)


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