Millions of people die or become disabled due to cardiovascular diseases, including strokes. But you can protect yourself, or at least significantly reduce your risk of stroke. And for this you need not to take medications, but to monitor those aspects of your lifestyle that affect seven key factors of your health. What are these indicators and how to “tune” them in an optimal way to avoid a stroke? I will talk about this in a new series of materials, the first of which you are reading now.
First of all, a few words about the role of heredity. We cannot influence this factor yet. However, the contribution of genetics to vascular accidents does not exceed 15–20%. Therefore, stroke prevention is the most effective protection strategy. And the sooner you start sticking to this strategy, the better. Although stroke develops most often in the elderly, this disease is getting younger in recent years: a study of Russian doctors showed that among 1 people with such a diagnosis in Moscow hospitals from 072 to 2005, there were 2012% of young people (from 9 to 18 years old) …
So, first, let’s take a look at all 7 factors of stroke:
- physical activity,
- cholesterol level,
- blood sugar
- blood pressure,
- food,
- body weight,
- smoking.
Why these particular factors? They were proposed by the American Heart Association, and they were confirmed in a large-scale and long-term study that covered 23 thousand US residents over the age of 45. Over the course of five years, 432 stroke attacks were recorded among the participants. And all 7 indicators played an important role in predicting the risk of stroke.
How exactly? Scientists assigned participants a certain number of points – from 0 to 14 – depending on how accurately they monitor these factors (maintain optimal weight, quit smoking, prevent cholesterol from rising, etc.). Moreover, they identified three compliance categories: insufficient (from 0 to 4 points), average (from 5 to 9 points) and optimal (from 10 to 14 points).
It turned out that a 1-point increase in the index was associated with an 8% reduction in stroke risk! People with optimal scores had a 48% lower risk of stroke, and people with average scores 27% less risk than those whose scores were judged to be inadequate.
In my opinion, this is very encouraging data. They prove that we can prevent this deadly disease. Of course, it’s not easy to force yourself to change your lifestyle: habit is second nature. But after all, it is not at all necessary to arrange a revolution in a single organism. Try to start with small changes and gradually adapt to them so that these new habits become a part of you. Moreover, even minor changes can seriously reduce your risks of “earning” a stroke. They seem especially insignificant in comparison with what has to be changed in his life (and in the life of relatives and friends) to a person who has survived a stroke.
In this series of articles, we will look at each of the 7 factors. And I’ll start with excess weight.