Do THIS to SHIELD Your Heart and Brain! (EASY)

The medical community loves to make you think that all diseases and conditions are separate. That way they can prescribe you a drug to treat each one.

But most of your health problems are overlapping and intertwined.

Case in point: It turns out that one of the biggest risk factors for heart disease also increases your risk of dementia.

The good news?

Fixing this problem can protect both your heart AND your brain.

There’s no doubt that getting your blood pressure under control is critical for your heart health.

After all, it’s considered a primary risk factor for heart disease.

But if your numbers are creeping up (or if you’re already dealing with hypertension), there’s another huge reason to get on top of them:

It could help prevent dementia.

Your blood pressure is every bit as important for your brain health as it is for your heart health—because getting plenty of oxygen to your brain is critical for it to function.

In fact, low blood flow to the brain is the number one risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease.

Your blood pressure doesn’t have to be through the roof for you to suffer from its consequences. Just slightly elevated pressure has been associated with a 30 percent higher risk of dementia within two decades.

But lowering your BP can lower your dementia risk.

A recent study published in JAMA evaluating 92,000 people showed that in people with high blood pressure (154/83), reducing blood pressure with drugs lowered the risk of developing dementia or cognitive impairment within the next four years by 7 percent.

Likely that number would go up as the years went by.

High blood pressure damages both large and small blood vessels in your brain. It also accelerates the buildup of fatty plaque inside your arteries, which contributes to atherosclerosis.

There are three key points I want to highlight here:

1. High blood pressure contributes to dementia.
2. Lowering your blood pressure can help reduce your risk.
3. You don’t have to take hypertension drugs to get your BP under control.

This study used drugs to bring down those numbers, but there are plenty of other better, safer ways to lower your readings.

It starts with good diet and exercise, getting your weight under control, and cutting back on alcohol and caffeine.

But in addition, eating foods rich in flavanols (like berries and dark chocolate) can do wonders for your blood pressure.

It’s simple, really: Get your lifestyle under control, and your blood pressure will follow.