Study Links These Factors to a Younger-Looking Brain

Living a healthy lifestyle and exercising regularly could help keep your brain looking young, according to new research.

In a new study, researchers in Sweden used artificial intelligence and brain scans to determine whether there was any connection between older adults’ lifestyles and their brain health.

The data showed that participants who had diabetes, stroke, and low physical activity were also more likely to have a larger “brain age gap”—this refers to the difference in how old the brain appears biologically (brain age) and the person’s actual chronological age.

Having a larger brain age gap was associated with inflammation, changes in white matter, and other indications of poor brain health, which raise the risk of cognitive decline.

The study was published on Dec. 20 in Alzheimer’s and Dementia, the journal of the Alzheimer’s Association.

“The choices that people make in life—physical activity, social engagement, how many things they do that are cognitively stimulating—all of these things can have an effect on a person’s brain age,” Ambar Kulshreshtha, MD, PhD, MPH, associate professor of family and preventive medicine at the Emory University School of Medicine, told Health. “When you have these medical conditions, you have to pay even more attention to the things you can control in your lifestyle.”

Here’s what experts had to say about the new research, why heart and vascular health is associated with a younger-looking brain, plus ways to promote brain health as you age.

Aging causes physical changes throughout the body, and the brain is no exception. As people get older, their brains shrink, and in certain parts of the brain, neurons may communicate less efficiently. On top of that, certain health conditions can weaken blood supply to the brain and cause brain inflammation.

To get a better picture of how different health and lifestyle factors may contribute to brain aging, the researchers collected brain scans of 739 healthy 70-year-olds living in Gothenburg, Sweden, between 2014 and 2016.

Using those images, the researchers then calculated each participant’s brain age gap by subtracting their estimated biological brain age from their chronicle age.

Each study participant also provided data about various health and lifestyle factors, including how active or sedentary they were, whether they smoked, their education level, how much alcohol they drank, and their body mass index (BMI).

Researchers also tracked participants’ medical histories, which included any recorded high blood pressure, heart diseases, prediabetes or diabetes, depression, and stroke or transient ischemic attack (TIA), sometimes called a “warning stroke.”

The researchers found that, among the 70-year-olds, the average brain age was 71. However, there were differences in the brain age gap depending on a number of factors.

People tended to have a greater brain age gap, or an older-looking brain, if they reported being physically inactive, having diabetes, or having a history of stroke or TIA.

Those with larger brain age gaps also were more likely to have brain inflammation, changes in their white matter, high blood sugar levels, and markers of cerebral small vessel disease (or damage to arteries or other blood vessels in the brain).

On the contrary, people who had prediabetes had younger-looking brains, as did people with obesity who engaged in regular exercise.

The study’s results highlight the role lifestyle and common health conditions such as diabetes, heart disease, or obesity might play in brain aging. They also suggest that exercise could potentially offset the potential consequences of at least one of these risk factors.

However, it’s not exactly clear how these factors might interact with one another or how they could accelerate or decelerate brain aging, said study author Anna Marseglia, PhD, neuropsychologist and assistant professor in the Division of Clinical Geriatrics at the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden, told Health.

The study simply established a connection—but not a cause—between brain age and these health issues.

“We can’t determine exactly why cardiometabolic conditions are linked to worse brain health,” Marseglia said. “However, previous research has consistently shown that vascular risk factors like high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes, and heart disease—especially when they are not well-managed—can damage blood vessels.”

More research needs to be done, said Marseglia, especially since this study had a relatively small sample size and only looked at data from one point in time.

Although it cannot establish a causal link, the new study strengthens the idea that poor heart health could be connected to poor brain health.

“Vascular health is very important for the health of the brain and every organ because every organ needs blood,” David Jones, MD, an investigator in the Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center at Mayo Clinic, told Health.

High blood pressure puts a person at higher risk of having a stroke, which in turn accelerates brain aging. Hypertension might also trigger brain inflammation, and diabetes has been linked to blood vessel damage in the brain.

Additionally, heart disease and brain health have overlapping risk factors. According to a 2022 statistical report from the American Heart Association, dementia and Alzheimer’s disease share many of the same risk factors that also contribute to heart disease, including high blood pressure, obesity, diabetes, and tobacco use.

On the other hand, having a healthy cardiovascular system seems to have positive effects on brain health. This is likely why the new study found an association between exercise and a younger-looking brain, said Marseglia.

“Regular physical activity, no matter how intense, offers a lot of benefits for the brain,” she explained. “It strengthens the heart, improves circulation, and helps maintain a healthy weight, all of which are important for keeping the brain healthy.”

Brain aging is inevitable—and research suggests it may peak at ages 57, 70, and 78. Though not every person experiences cognitive decline or other brain health issues, it’s good to understand the ways you can protect your brain as you age.

Not all of the cardiometabolic conditions linked to an older-looking brain, such as heart disease or stroke, are in a person’s control, said Kulshreshtha. However, there are many other lifestyle factors that are.

“Beyond the classic don’t smoke, limit alcohol consumption, and eat healthy, definitively be physically active,” Marseglia said. “This doesn’t mean people have to go to the gym or engage in intense exercise every day. Even light, leisurely activities like walking, gardening, or any task that involves physical movement can be beneficial.”

Getting adequate sleep—between 7 and 9 hours for most adults—is also important, as is abiding by the “use it or use it” philosophy when it comes to challenging your brain.

“Variety is the spice of life,” Jones said. “The more diverse experiences that you provide to your brain—exploring all of its potential options for what it can do, rather than doing the same thing all the time—is one of the best things you can do to keep it healthy.”