Previous studies have shown that heart health at 50 predicts brain health at 75.

This study is interesting in that it quantifies the benefit as 12.5 extra dementia-free years. People with 0 risk factors had 30 years of dementia-free survival, vs 17.5 years for people with all 3 risk factors measured.

The risk factors in this specific study are blood pressure, diabetes (HbA1c), and smoking. You could reasonably also include cholesterol/ApoB, inflammation (hs-CRP), and perhaps Lp(a) as potential risk factors.

Yes. The time to fix your health is now. Any unhealthy habits put time on the biological clock, and they'll just get harder to undo later. This is true if you're 20, 40, or 60. Plaque even starts building up on the arteries of healthy teenagers. It all adds up.

But don't read this and panic or beat yourself up, that's a waste of energy. That's choosing the punishment instead of the fix.

Instead, quietly start doing one small healthy habit. If you stop, don't revert to self-punishment again. Just quietly get back to it. Stubbornly persist until you've won.

> Hypertension was defined as a systolic blood pressure of 140 mm Hg or higher, a diastolic blood pressure of 90 mm Hg or higher, or the utilization of blood pressure-lowering medications.

Whoever defined this, thank you for having common sense!

This stood out to me because there are so many lunatics defining it as 121/80 or even 121/70 with the backwards idea that the systolic is more important. Worse still is when they insist that something as low as 100/65 is optimal despite complaints of dizziness. All the while hammering home that you should chug a million gallons of water and deprive yourself of sodium. It's like they're trying to make people miserable.

The importance of walking can not be overstated. Walking for 30 mins every other day will dramatically improve your life if you are sedentary. If you can't do 30 minutes, start with 15.

> Maintaining optimal midlife vascular health was associated with up to 12.6 additional dementia-free survival years,

Stay on top of your cardiovascular health. Even moderate diet and lifestyle changes can have a significant impact on the last decade of your life. These things compound over decades.

The work of Dr. Rick Johnson is perhaps relevant. He links the effects of fructose on the mitochondria, which then affects the neurons in the brain, over time.

This hypothesis makes much more sense to me when you think to the associated diseases (diabetes, heart disease etc...)

You can get a overview of his research on this podcast (approx 75min): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=59Oje6n2JLU