As we’ve previously noted in agebuzz, heart disease remains one of the most serious causes of illness and death among older adults, and high blood pressure is one of the main causes of stroke and heart attacks in older people. So monitoring your blood pressure and taking prescribed blood pressure medications, along with other healthy lifestyle behaviors, are critical to keeping your blood pressure in check and your heart healthy. For those with high blood pressure, monitoring the pressure on a regular basis becomes a must. The American Heart Association has important advice on how to monitor your blood pressure from home, as does a recent post from US News & World Report. There is even a website- ValidateBP.org– that provides you with a list of blood pressure monitoring devices that have been clinically validated so that you know you’re getting accurate blood pressure readings with the device you’re using at home.

In this time of COVID-19, some of you may be worried that taking your blood pressure medications may in some way put you at greater risk or increase the severity of your symptoms should you become infected. The good news according to research published in the New England Journal of Medicine is that such blood pressure meds don’t seem to work that way and the advice is to continue taking your meds as prescribed, though checking in with your physician is always appropriate. So pull out that blood pressure cuff and read more here.

And a new study published in JAMA provides even more evidence that you should be doing all you can to lower your blood pressure: the study analysis shows that lowering blood pressure with appropriate antihypertensive medications led to a clear reduction in the risk of dementia and cognitive impairment compared to those in control groups who only took placebo medication. So not only are you helping your heart when you control your blood pressure but your brain will benefit as well. For more on this study, click here.