High blood pressure has been linked with increased risks for heart disease and stroke which explains why health experts recommend against food and lifestyle practices that could elevate blood pressure levels.

Although many young and middle-age individuals do not care about their blood pressure levels, a new study suggests the importance of keeping tabs of your blood pressure early in life. The research "Joint effect of mid- and late-life blood pressure on the brain," which was published in the journal Neurology on June 4, reveals that a person's blood pressure level during midlife can be a predictor of his cognitive performance later in life.

For the study, Lenore J. Launer, from the National Institute on Aging in Bethesda, Maryland, and colleagues, hypothesized that individuals with a history of hypertension whose blood pressure levels dropped later in life are at risk for brain-related problems. To test this hypothesis, they involved more than 4,000 men and women who do not have dementia at the start of the study.

The participants, who were 50 years old on average, had their blood pressure measured at the beginning of the study and by the time they were about 76 years old. They also underwent brain scans and answered tests that assessed their memory and thinking abilities.

The researchers found that the participants who do not have a history of hypertension in midlife but developed high blood pressure later in life had 50 percent increased risks for brain lesion and were more likely to experience minor bleeding in the brain, which is associated with dementia, a brain disease characterized by loss of memory and decline in thinking and reasoning abilities.

Participants who have high blood pressure levels in midlife but reduced their blood pressure levels later in life, on the other hand, were associated with gray matter volumes and brain shrinkage. They also experienced 10 percent reduction in memory scores and were more vulnerable to extensive organ damage.

"Research suggests that lifestyle factors, including blood pressure, could be important modifiers of brain health," said Laura Phipps, from the Alzheimer's Research UK, which helped fund the study. "This study did not focus on dementia, but it suggests a complex relationship between mid and late life blood pressure, and memory performance later in life."

Study researcher Launer explained that high blood pressure during middle age damages the vascular system and this negatively affects the cerebral blood flow.

"In this large population-based cohort, late-life BP differentially affects brain pathology and cognitive performance, depending on the history of midlife hypertension," Launer and colleagues concluded. "Our study suggests history of hypertension is critical to understand how late-life BP affects brain structure and function."