The ManicaPost
Dr Tendai Zuze
Health Matters
A STROKE occurs when the blood supply to a certain part of the brain is interrupted or reduced preventing brain tissue from receiving vital nutrients and oxygen causing the cells to die.
Worldwide, in four people are at risk of stroke in their lifetime.
Several factors can increase a person’s chance of stroke including being overweight or obese, physically inactivity, heavy drinking, use of drugs, cigarette smoking, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes, obstructive sleep apnoea, cardiovascular diseases such as abnormal heart rhythm, heart failure and family history of stroke.
Other factors like age, race, gender, and hormones also become causes of stroke at times.
Your lifestyle choices and habits may impact your risk of stroke. While healthy habits can reduce it significantly, unhealthy ones can make us more prone.
Here are everyday lifestyle habits that could put you at risk of stroke.
High-salt diet
People who consume high salt diet or diets rich in saturated fats, trans fat, and cholesterol are at high risk of stroke and heart disease.
Eating a lot of packaged and canned stuff can also increase stroke risk due to high salt and nitrate preservatives.
A high salt diet elevates blood pressure and is a prominent risk factor.
Managing the diet can reduce stroke risk by 30 percent.
Inactive lifestyle
Couch potatoes or those who do not regularly exercise may be at increased risk of stroke.
A sedentary lifestyle and obesity are prominent stroke risk factors as they cause an increase in other health conditions including obesity, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and diabetes which further increase the risk of stroke.
Regular physical activity can lower your chances of stroke.
A simple exercise like walking for 150 minutes a week can reduce stroke risk substantially.
Drinking alcohol
If you feel you go overboard with alcohol, now is the time to limit your intake, if you want to ward off the risk of stroke.
Drinking too much alcohol can raise blood pressure levels and the risk for stroke.
It also increases levels of triglycerides, a form of fat in your blood that can harden your arteries.
By making the arterial wall weak, excessive alcohol use also increases the risk of haemorrhagic stroke where a blood vessel in your brain ruptures.
Smoking and tobacco use
Smoking and tobacco use are the main lifestyle risk factor for stroke.
Cigarette smoking can damage the heart and blood vessels, increasing your risk for stroke.
“The nicotine in cigarettes raises blood pressure, and the carbon monoxide from cigarette smoke reduces the amount of oxygen that your blood can carry.
“Even if you don’t smoke, breathing in other people’s secondhand smoke can make you more likely to have a stroke.
“After cessation of smoking for 5 years, your risk may come down close to the normal population.
Insomnia or lack of sleep
Lack of proper sleep is coming across as a major risk factor for stroke.
Lack of sleep causes an increase in sympathetic hormones like catecholamines that elevate blood pressure and sugar leading to increased oxidative stress and vessel wall injury.
A restful sleep restores good health.
As you can see, strokes, like a lot of other health issues, are in many ways preventable through lifestyle choices.
