We see many advertisements and charities promoting looking after your heart and how to prevent heart disease and research tells us that the most important thing you can do is be kind to your heart, especially in your 40s and 50s.  What’s good for your heart is also good for your brain!

Looking after your heart health, including controlling blood pressure and being physically active, can help lower your risk of heart disease and dementia too – particularly Alzheimer’s disease and vascular dementia.

According to a report published by leading medical journal The Lancet in 2020, social isolation in later life could be a factor in around 4% of cases of dementia. We know that being socially active, whether that’s picking up the phone, meeting friends for a coffee, joining community groups, volunteering, or jumping onto Zoom for a catch-up can help us feel happier, healthier and more positive in general.  Please reach out, particularly to those on their own.

Some interesting random brain facts from various sources of recent research:

• A brain weighs about 3.3 lbs. (1.5 kilograms).
• A 2 year old baby will have an 80% fully grown brain. It will continue to grow until you’re about 18 years old. It isn’t until about the age of 25 that the human brain reaches full maturity.
• Obesity is linked with poorer brain health in people with and without memory and thinking problems.
• Your brain only accounts for 2% of your body weight but uses about 20% of your energy.
• Afternoon napping was linked to better memory and thinking in people over the age of 60.
• Your human brain contains approximately 100 billion neurons which is about the same as the number of stars in the Milky Way galaxy.
• Officially called a Sphenopalatine Ganglioneuralgia, a brain freeze happens when you eat or drink something that’s too cold.
• Every minute, 750-1,000 millilitres of blood flows through the brain. This is enough to fill a bottle of wine or litre bottle of soda.
• Consisting of minimum 60% fat, your brain is the fattiest organ in your body. This is why healthy fats, such as Omega-3s and Omega-6s, are vital for brain and overall body health.
• We cry when we are very happy because our hypothalamus in our brain can’t distinguish the difference between strong happiness and strong sadness.
• The world’s fastest supercomputer requires 24 million Watts of power to operate, but our brains only require 20 Watts and operate about 100,000 times faster.
• Your brain is the only object in the world that can contemplate itself.

Take their Brain Health quiz HERE.

If you have general questions about dementia or want to know more about dementia research and how you and your loved ones can get involved, Dementia Research Infoline can help.

Alzheimer’s Research UK is a registered charity, numbers 1077089 and SC042474.

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