4 min readNew DelhiSep 10, 2026 11:00 AM IST
Cardiologist Dr Kota Reddy recently explained how blood pressure can affect brain health. Speaking to fitness expert Terri Alani, he said, “If your (systolic) blood pressure is 100 or 110 and you don’t have dizziness, that’s actually the best blood pressure for your brain.”
He added that if the goal is to protect the brain, systolic blood pressure — the upper number in a blood pressure reading — should ideally remain below 120 mmHg, saying, “The brain doesn’t care about age. If your blood pressure is high, it’s going to hurt.”
But does that mean the lower your blood pressure, the better? Not necessarily, says Dr Nitin K Sethi, Chairman of Neurosciences and Senior Consultant at PSRI Hospital. While maintaining blood pressure in a healthy range can reduce the long-term risk of stroke and damage to the brain’s small blood vessels, excessively low blood pressure