What if we told you that you could live your life in simple ways that give you a very, very good chance of having a healthy heart and a sharp brain well into old age?

No special drugs, no special surgeries, no amazing scientific discoveries and no wonder cures.

Sounds pretty good, doesn’t it? And it’s simple. Science is beginning to understand that the route to a healthy brain and healthy heart might be pretty much on the same road. The important mileposts on that road: eating smartly, getting moderate exercise, controlling your weight, your blood pressure and your cholesterol levels and stopping smoking.

The two of us — one a brain expert, the other a heart expert — will talk about brains and hearts and health this Monday night, Feb. 24, as part of the OHSU Brain Institute’s Brain Awareness Season lecture series. Our lecture will begin at 7 p.m. at the Newmark Theater in downtown Portland.

We’ll talk about how science has known for years that following some of these “living healthy” principles can help your heart health. But we’re increasingly seeing that the same good practices that help your heart also seem to help your brain.

For example, science knows no absolute cure or prevention — yet — for dementia. But there are hints.

A long-term study of 678 Roman Catholic nuns (known, not surprisingly, as the Nun Study) has shown that in patients with an equivalent number of “plaques” and “tangles” in the brain associated with Alzheimer’s disease, only those who also had had small strokes showed signs of dementia. That could mean small strokes somehow “activated” the dementia in brains that had the plaques.

And that suggests that if you decrease your risk factors for stroke — by following those “living healthy” principles — you also decrease your risk of dementia.

We’re also increasingly understanding how important prenatal nutrition is to that baby’s health — heart health, brain health and overall health — as an adult. Lower birth weight from poor prenatal nutrition means a higher risk of stroke and heart disease. And many organs, including the heart and brain, grow abnormally when nutrition is poor before birth.

There’s a lot more to talk about, in terms of how lifestyle decisions you make every day have a long-term effect on your heart and brain. So join us Monday night — on the road to better heart and brain health.

And you don’t have to stop learning on Monday. You can learn much more by joining the OHSU Brain Institute’s just-launched Healthy Brain campaign. The campaign will offer monthly tips and a way to celebrate your progress and learn more from each other and OHSU experts in September.

Joe Quinn, M.D.
Director, OHSU Parkinson Center
Professor, Department of Neurology
OHSU Brain Institute

Kent L. Thornburg, Ph.D.
M. Lowell Edwards Chair,
 Professor of Medicine, OHSU School of Medicine
Director, Center for Developmental Health, Knight Cardiovascular Institute
Director, Bob and Charlee Moore Institute for Nutrition & Wellness