Diet for keeping blood pressure down.(Special Report)

High blood pressure, or hypertension, doesn't only raise the risk for strokes, heart attacks, and other forms of heart disease--the nation's number one killer. People with elevated blood pressure in middle age are also more likely to suffer 25 years later from loss of cognitive abilities--memory, problem solving, concentration, judgment, and so on. And that translates into a diminished capacity to function independently in old age. Scientists from the National Institute on Aging and other research centers who followed more than 3,500 men found that for every 10 points above the group's lowest average systolic pressure readings at age 50 or so, the risk for poor cognitive function went up 5 percent when the men were in their 70s.

Fortunately, several …