Guarding Your Brain: 10 Strategies to Protect Your Vascular Health

Brain health depends heavily on the strength and integrity of the blood vessels that deliver oxygen and nutrients while clearing metabolic waste. Protecting the endothelial lining through targeted lifestyle strategies—such as optimizing blood pressure, blood sugar, nutrition, sleep, and stress—can reduce the risk of cognitive decline, stroke, and dementia. Consistent daily habits, guided by personal purpose, are key to preserving vascular health and long-term brain resilience.

Protecting Your Brain’s Blood Vessels

Hi there. Welcome back to Rethink Aging. I’m Dr. Cindy and today’s topic is protecting your brain’s blood vessels.

We know that our brains run on blood and all of the rest of our body. Of course, we have miles and miles of blood vessels that the job is to carry nutrient-rich blood and oxygen to the cells so that they can work well and do their job and help us feel well and have energy.

And then the blood also brings back metabolic waste and runs it through our elimination systems through the liver and kidneys. And so the blood vessels are really key for our overall health.

Understanding Blood Vessels and Endothelial Glycocalyx

There’s a part of the anatomy that you may not know about. It is called the endothelial glycocalyx. This is a delicate inner lining to all of our blood vessels.

It functions as a barrier. It also helps to regulate our blood pressure through modulation of nitric oxide production. It protects against oxidative stress and it can just overall protect the lining of the blood vessels from being damaged by various factors.

But aging and stress and environmental pollution, tobacco smoke—lots of things can damage the lining.

I’m going to help share some tips for you to learn how to protect it so that we can decrease our risk for dementia, both vascular dementia and Alzheimer’s disease, because there’s often a vascular component to Alzheimer’s disease.

By doing these, you will also be preventing or minimizing your risk for strokes, TIAs, and cognitive decline.

Top 10 Tips for Vascular Health

Know Your Numbers: Key Biomarkers

These are blood work biomarkers that I check on virtually every patient that I see. Of course the basic cholesterol profile, but also advanced cardiometabolic testing.

There’s three numbers I want to highlight today:

Lp(a) – a sticky cholesterol molecule that tends to be inherited and increases cardiovascular risk
Lp-PLA2 – an enzyme that signals vascular inflammation
LDL particle number – the lower the better

Know your numbers, and then take steps to address them through lifestyle measures first, nutraceuticals, and potentially pharmaceuticals if needed.

Optimizing Blood Pressure Naturally

You want to know your blood pressure and try to optimize it through lifestyle measures first.

Many times we can get blood pressure down without pharmaceuticals by optimizing body composition—losing unwanted body fat and building lean muscle.

Magnesium is one of my favorites. I like to pair magnesium with taurine. There are also natural herbs like hawthorn and hibiscus that you can make into a tea.

Breathwork, relaxation activities, minimizing alcohol, and being mindful of caffeine all matter.

Addressing Insulin Resistance

Insulin resistance is very, very common. It tends to occur when we age and gain weight.

Insulin is a hormone secreted by the pancreas in response to glucose intake. It acts as a messenger—some people say a bouncer—knocking on the door of the cell and saying, “Hey, we’ve got some blood sugar out here.”

When there’s insulin resistance, the message doesn’t get through, blood sugar rises, and that leads to damage in the lining of the blood vessels.

Lifestyle measures—optimizing body weight, exercising, and eating a whole foods diet with minimal added sugar—are a wonderful way to lower insulin resistance.

Nourishing Your Endothelium

There are a lot of beautiful foods that nourish the lining of the blood vessels:
berries, beets, dark chocolate, olive oil, nuts.

A whole foods, plant-heavy diet is very nourishing for the endothelium.

Minimizing Toxin Exposure

We live in a world with a lot of environmental chemicals.

Take inventory of your household products and personal care products. Filter your air. Filter your water. Purchase organic produce when possible.

Cruciferous vegetables—cauliflower, broccoli, Brussels sprouts—contain detoxifying components that help the body get rid of toxins.

Healing Your Gut for Vascular Health

Be attentive to your gut and heal the lining of the gut and the microbiome.

Fiber feeds the gut bacteria, and in return they produce short-chain fatty acids that nourish the gut lining.

If you have reflux, diarrhea, constipation, or heartburn on a regular basis, seek help. Don’t just mask symptoms.

Functional medicine recognizes that we are totally connected. Gut disruption directly impacts brain function and risk for cognitive decline.

The Importance of Exercise

Exercise is so healing to the vasculature.

It helps keep blood pressure low, improves metabolic health, releases endorphins, and builds resilience to stress.

Calming the Nervous System

Some of my favorite ways are closing my eyes, being silent, breathing, and saying a silent prayer.

Gargling, humming, singing, and chanting stimulate the vagus nerve and promote a calming and healing response in the body.

This can lower blood pressure and decrease the risk for heart attacks.

Ensuring Quality Sleep

Sleep is critical for brain health.

Microglial cells sweep up metabolic waste at night, and that only happens during deep restorative sleep.

Sleep deprivation or untreated sleep apnea can damage blood vessels.

If you snore, have daytime sleepiness, depression, or uncontrolled hypertension, talk to your doctor and get tested.

Finding Your Purpose for Long-Term Health

My number one tip for protecting your endothelium is to anchor all of these choices and decisions in your reason for being—your meaning and purpose.

Our tendency as human beings is to do the least amount of effort.

It’s only when we are deeply motivated from a place of meaning and purpose that we can stick with these changes for the long haul.

Final Thoughts

That was my summary of spotlighting the endothelium and how to protect your vasculature for brain health and longevity.

I’ll see you next time.

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