Summary: New study highlights that optimal mental health, crucial for maintaining mental function as we age, is highly linked to cardiovascular wellbeing. The study underscores that dementia and cognitive drop communicate risk factors with heart disease, suggesting these problems are largely preventable by managing nutrition, exercise, cholesterol, blood sugar, and blood pressure.
Following instructions such as the American Heart Association’s Life Essential 8—eight necessary actions to strengthen cardiovascular and mental health—can significantly lower the risk of developing memory. Specialists argue that integrating these heart-healthy habits into daily living offers a realistic strategy for reducing the growing global problem of memory.
Important Facts:
- Shared Chance Factors: Dementia and brain disorder share common modifiable risk factors, such as diet, blood pressure, and cholesterol.
- Rising Burden: Globally, dementia cases have risen 160 % since 1990, outpacing vascular disease.
- Preventative Strategies: Adopting the American Heart Association’s” Life Essential 8″ could significantly protect brain health and reduce dementia risk.
Origin: AHA
The average child brain just weighs about 3 pounds, but it is one of the most difficult and important tissues of the human body.
Thinking may rise and our , brains become susceptible to disease as we age, but as medical advances and another factors help the world’s population live long the prevalence of brain disease, including , dementia, is on the rise.
But, keeping our brains healthy may be easier than citizens realize with some good advice from the American Heart Association, a global power changing the future of wellbeing of all.
Optimal , head health , includes the useful ability to perform all the different tasks for which the mind is responsible – including considering, moving and feeling.
Many modifiable risk factors for , cognitive loss, such as an unhealthy diet and sedentary lifestyle, develop as early as childhood and adolescence. As we age, our ability to remember, problem-solve, think and communicate decreases.
” We now know that many of the same health risk factors that cause , heart disease , and , stroke , also contribute to a decline in overall brain health”, said Mitchell S. V. Elkind, M. D., M. S., FAHA, a neurologist and former volunteer American Heart Association president and currently its chief clinical science officer.
” Just like with heart disease and stroke, most brain disease is preventable. However, the combination of an aging population and projected substantial increases in high blood pressure, obesity and diabetes are likely to lead to unprecedented growth in many types of brain disease”.
According to data reported in the , 2025 Heart Disease and Stroke Statistics: A Report of U. S. and Global Data From the American Heart Association:
- Alzheimer’s disease is the 7th , leading cause of death in the U. S. and the leading cause of death among all neurological disorders, including stroke.
- More females than males die of dementia each year because of the higher prevalence of elderly females compared with males. Females accounted for 66.7 % of U. S. dementia deaths in 2022.
- More than 6.9 million people in the U. S. are living with Alzheimer’s disease.
- An analysis of Medicare data reported in the update estimates that prevalence will more than double to 13.9 million Americans by 2060.
Also reported in the statistical update:
- Worldwide, nearly 57 million people had Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias in 2021, a 45 % increase since 2010 and a 160 % increase over the past 30 years ( 1990-2021 ). For comparison, the prevalence of cardiovascular disease increased 33 % over the past decade and 111 % over the past 30 years
- The increase in global deaths from Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias is outpacing that of cardiovascular disease even more – dementia deaths increased by nearly 195 % since 1990, compared to a 57 % increase in cardiovascular deaths during that same time.
- Estimated U. S. healthcare spending on dementia more than doubled from$ 38.6 billion in 1996 to$ 79.2 billion in 2016. Spending on dementias was among the top 10 healthcare costs in the United States in 2016.
” The burden of brain disorders is high. Dementia as a cause of death is growing faster than any other disease, including heart disease, the number one cause of death worldwide. Paradoxically, as we get better at treating other conditions, like heart disease, stroke and cancer, dementia as a cause of death increases”, Elkind said.
” Using many of the same tools and information that have helped us successfully address cardiovascular risk factors and reduce the burden of heart disease over the past several decades, we should be able to do the same for brain disorders and promote brain health”.
Elkind said following the American Heart Association ‘s , Life Essential 8™ , can be as beneficial for brain health as it is for heart health. These include 4 health behaviors and 4 health factors identified as key measures for improving and maintaining cardiovascular health:
- Health Behaviors: Eat Better
- Health Behaviors: Be More Active
- Health Behaviors: Quit Tobacco
- Health Behaviors: Get Healthy Sleep
- Health Factors: Manage Weight
- Health Factors: Control Cholesterol
- Health Factors: Manage Blood Sugar
- Health Factors: Manage Blood Pressure
” The American Heart Association is committed to advancing brain science through innovative research that will help scientists shed new light on the causes and contributors to cognitive impairment and dementia, particularly as it relates to heart and vascular health”, Elkind said.
” Additionally, we can support individuals and communities in thinking of brain health not only in terms of an absence of disease, but also in a more positive way. We can look at how we optimize brain function to include positive cognitive traits like creativity, adaptability, resilience, empathy and others”.
He said the increasing cost of poor brain health in lives and dollars makes the Association’s ongoing commitment to better understand how brains age and how vascular health impacts brain health and overall well-being even more imperative.
” When people are asked what health conditions they fear the most with aging, dementia tops the list, surpassing even cancer, heart disease and stroke”, Elkind said.
” It’s critical that as a society and as individuals we understand and make the changes needed to improve health outcomes from brain disease and, more importantly, prevent them to begin with”.
About this brain health and longevity research news
Author: Cathy Lewis
Source: AHA
Contact: Cathy Lewis – AHA
Image: The image is credited to Neuroscience News
