Our experts give you five tips on how to significantly reduce the chances of stroke. The advice will seem familiar …
It reads like the guideline for preventing a heart attack: the risk factors for a stroke are actually virtually the same. Large international studies all conclude that lifestyle is crucial. Together with medical care, the risk of suffering a heart attack or stroke can be reduced by about 90 percent! The five tips given by scientists worldwide are familiar to every reader:
Healthy Diet
Lots of fruits and vegetables, as well as sugar and animal fats, reduce the formation of dreaded “vascular calcification” (arteriosclerosis). This prevents the blockage of blood vessels – it does not lead to reduced blood flow to heart muscle or brain tissue.
Avoid overweight!
Above all, fat pads on the stomach increase the risk of hypertension and clogged veins. Normal weight (BMI under 25) have much better cards to stay clear of the mischief.
Move!
If you do a bit of exercise for at least 30 minutes a week – it’s already a brisk walk – it helps to keep your blood vessels running. This is recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO). By the way helps movement against overweight.
Beware of alcohol!
As trained Austrians, we like to hear and read that moderate consumption of alcohol should even be healthy. This is basically not wrong – but the doctors mean very small amounts when they speak of a protective influence. The following bill is certainly not true: If 1/8 l of wine is healthy, how good then must be only 2 liters? Too much alcohol increases the total mortality of every human, it’s just poison! Our experts advise you to abstain from alcohol for three to four days a week. Especially if there are pre-existing conditions such as high blood pressure, high blood lipid levels or diabetes.
Become a non-smoker!
If you are a non-smoker, you should definitely stick to it: smokers are up to three times more likely to have strokes. Also, passive smoking means, as we now clearly know, great danger to the heart and brain.
So much for the avoidable influences. A condition that we can not control ourselves affects the heart: The world’s most common cardiac arrhythmia, the so-called atrial fibrillation , increases the stroke probability by 5 times! It is an electrical disorder of the atria of the heart that can not contract properly. The doctor recognizes the mishap on the ECG immediately. Those affected suffer from symptoms such as irregular heartbeat, increased heart rate, restlessness, anxiety, and limited resilience due to shortness of breath and chest pain.
In atrial fibrillation, clots (small blood clots) can form, which are thrown from the heart muscle into the brain and clog blood vessels there. So it comes to a stroke! The tendency increases with age as a result of diabetes, hypertension and poor heart failure (insufficiency). People who have been diagnosed with atrial fibrillation must, of course, be medically treated and checked. There are a number of effective medicines that are prescribed according to the situation. What can the patients themselves contribute ? See above: Eat sensibly, move well, do not get fat, do not smoke and use alcohol sparingly.