STROKE CAN BE PREVENTED: YOUR LIFESTYLE MATTERS

What more can be more frustrating than when an individual tries to speak, and what should have been words came out as meaningless sounds. Paralysis of the body means experiencing difficulty with the basic things – getting out of bed, eating, getting dressed, and going to the bathroom. But perhaps most frustrating is the inability to talk. I mean after several years of happy and productive life, it becomes heart rendering to see a person with a stroke.

Some strokes are fatal, and many consider that a blessing if they have seen the disabilities survivors have to live with. And although the risk of stroke increases with age, it can happen to anyone. A stroke occurs when an area of the brain dies. 80 percent of stroke are caused by blockage of blood flow. Most of the rest are caused by bleeding in the brain. Apart from that, hardening of the arteries causes stroke too. As plaque builds up, it narrows the artery, reducing flow. This happens slowly, since the body is remarkably adaptive, even a very marked narrowing might not cause any symptoms for some time.

However, plaque in the carotid artery (the main artery supplying the brain – there’s one on each side) is a ticking bomb. At any time it might cause the artery to clot off, starving the brain of blood. Or a portion of the plaque might break off, traveling downstream in the blood flow until it wedges in a smaller artery, blocking it and causing the part of the brain supplied by that artery to die. Physicians call this an embolus.
Joseph McCaffrey noted that the exact symptoms of stroke vary with the part of the brain affected. The person may or may not lose consciousness. An arm or leg or both may become paralyzed or lose feeling. Damage to language processing areas can render the person’s speech garbled or confused. Another possible symptom is the sudden loss of vision in one eye, caused by a tiny bit of plaque – embolus lodging in the artery to the eye. The first part of the retina to die is the area farthest from the blockage. Vision fades there, and then the darkness spreads as more of the retina dies. The person experiencing this often describes it ‘as if a shade was pulled down.

WAYS TO PREVENT STROKES

Perhaps the most disturbing thing about strokes is that the vast majority ought not to have occurred in the first place. They are preventable.

1. Stop Smoking

If you smoke, do whatever you can to stop. Simply put it’s one of the most self destructive habits you can have, and has an increasing risk of stroke.





2. Drink Alcohol in moderation, if you must drink.

The relationship between drinking alcoholic beverages and stroke is quite unclear. It appears that one drink a day may slightly reduce the risk of stroke, while a drink a day more than doubles the risk. It is another reason to refrain from drinking heavily.

3. Control your Blood Pressure

High blood pressure contributes to both heart disease and stroke. It is also a major cause of kidney failure. Most physicians recommend maintaining the systolic blood pressure at 120 mmHg and the diastolic blood pressure at 80 mmHg or lower. However, even a reduction in blood pressure (i.e 9 mmHg systolic and 5 mmHg diastolic) can reduce the relative risk of stroke about one
third.
Ideally, you control your blood pressure with a healthy lifestyle. A diet emphasizing fruits and vegetables and low salt intake helps. So does maintaining a normal weight and exercising regularly. The balance between sodium and potassium in the body is important for blood pressure regulation. Most people get too much sodium from salt and not enough potassium. An easy way to add potassium as well as other nutrients to your diet is to regularly drink a no salt or low salt tomato-based vegetable juice with a little potassium chloride salt substitute added. Magnesium contributes to blood pressure control as well. It won’t do the job by itself, but is a part of an overall program – 500 mg a day is a reasonable dose for most people.