Experts have discovered a link between the cognitive age of your brain and your cardiovascular health at different stages in your life - with a lax approach to heart health in your mid-30s said to cause "brain shrinkage."
Researchers at University College London (UCL) found that having an unhealthy heart can age your brain, which scientists measured by tracking the size of participants' brains over a long period of time. Those with worse heart health aged 36, and then 69, were found to have brains sometimes 10 or 20 years older than their biological age.
The study hopes that understanding the link between the health of your heart, and the speed with which age-related diseases like Alzheimer's progress, could help doctors identify people "at risk" of accelerated brain ageing before they even reach middle age.
