The Science Of Our Heart-Brain Connection

The key to staying sharp and keeping your brain in tip-top shape has everything to do with the health of the hardest-working muscle in your body

- Toni Hope

THE BASICS

If it seems as if there are more people with dementia than there used to be, it’s not your imagination. Right now 5.7 million Americans are living with it, and by 2050 that number is projected to be up to 14 million, according to the Alzheimer’s Association. A big reason? Our heart health.

Here’s how it works: The brain requires fuel to function, and it gets its fill when the heart pumps lots of oxygen and glucose-containing blood upward, says Constantino Iadecola, M.D., director of the Feil Family Brain and Mind Research Institute at Weill Cornell Medicine. But the brain doesn’t have any reserves. Consider your heart and blood vessels as supply lines to a remote city with no grain silo, he suggests. “If the tracks don’t work, the city doesn’t eat, and the people starve.”

Think of it this way —the things you do to keep your heart in good shape (which of course you want to do, because, well, it’s your heart!) are the same lifestyle factors that may dramatically lower your risk of brain health issues as you age. Although there is no cure for dementia, “taking steps to prevent heart disease, which we do know how to do, can have a big impact on cognitive disorders,” says Rebecca Gottesman, M.D., Ph.D., professor of neurology at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Here’s what we’re learning about the ways your heart helps your head (and vice versa) and how you can use this new knowledge to stay healthy.

HOW YOUR HEART HELPS YOUR BRAIN