How the Majority of Strokes Could Be Prevented (apnews.com) 61
"The majority of strokes could be prevented," reports the Associated Press, according to the first new guidelines in 10 years from the American Stroke Association, which are "aimed at helping people and their doctors do just that."
Stroke was the fourth leading cause of death in the U.S. in 2023, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and more than half a million Americans have a stroke every year. But up to 80% of strokes may be preventable with better nutrition, exercise and identification of risk factors... The good news is that the best way to reduce your risk for stroke is also the best way to reduce your risk for a whole host of health problems — eat a healthy diet, move your body and don't smoke...
Eating healthy can help control several factors that increase your risk for stroke, including high cholesterol, high blood sugar, and obesity, according to the heart association. The group recommends foods in the so-called Mediterranean diet such as fruits, vegetables, whole grains and olive oil, which can help keep cholesterol levels down. It suggests limiting red meat and other sources of saturated fat. Instead, get your protein from beans, nuts, poultry, fish and seafood. Limit highly processed foods and foods and drinks with a lot of added sugar. This can also reduce your calorie intake, which helps keep weight in check.
Getting up and walking around for at least 10 minutes a day can "drastically" reduce your risk, said Dr. Cheryl Bushnell, a neurologist at Wake Forest University School of Medicine who was part of the group that came up with the new guidelines. Among the many benefits: Regular exercise can help reduce blood pressure, a major risk factor for stroke. Of course, more is better: The heart association recommends at least 150 minutes of moderate aerobic or 75 minutes of vigorous activity — or some combination — per week. How you do it doesn't matter so much, experts said: Go to the gym, take a walk or run in your neighborhood or use treadmills or stepper machines at home. Diet and exercise can help control weight, another important risk factor for strokes.
But in addition, the guidelines now recommend that doctors consider new weight-loss drugs like Ozempic, Wegovy, Mounjaro and Zepbound for people with obesity or diabetes. (Though "people still need to eat well and get exercise, cautions Dr. Fadi Nahab, a stroke expert at Emory University Hospital.")
Eating healthy can help control several factors that increase your risk for stroke, including high cholesterol, high blood sugar, and obesity, according to the heart association. The group recommends foods in the so-called Mediterranean diet such as fruits, vegetables, whole grains and olive oil, which can help keep cholesterol levels down. It suggests limiting red meat and other sources of saturated fat. Instead, get your protein from beans, nuts, poultry, fish and seafood. Limit highly processed foods and foods and drinks with a lot of added sugar. This can also reduce your calorie intake, which helps keep weight in check.
Getting up and walking around for at least 10 minutes a day can "drastically" reduce your risk, said Dr. Cheryl Bushnell, a neurologist at Wake Forest University School of Medicine who was part of the group that came up with the new guidelines. Among the many benefits: Regular exercise can help reduce blood pressure, a major risk factor for stroke. Of course, more is better: The heart association recommends at least 150 minutes of moderate aerobic or 75 minutes of vigorous activity — or some combination — per week. How you do it doesn't matter so much, experts said: Go to the gym, take a walk or run in your neighborhood or use treadmills or stepper machines at home. Diet and exercise can help control weight, another important risk factor for strokes.
But in addition, the guidelines now recommend that doctors consider new weight-loss drugs like Ozempic, Wegovy, Mounjaro and Zepbound for people with obesity or diabetes. (Though "people still need to eat well and get exercise, cautions Dr. Fadi Nahab, a stroke expert at Emory University Hospital.")
No way (Score:4, Funny)
with better nutrition, exercise
Limit highly processed foods and foods and drinks with a lot of added sugar.
Getting up and walking around for at least 10 minutes a day can "drastically" reduce your risk
You mean I have to do something like this every day? I can't eay my bag of pork rinds for lunch every day and chase 'em down with a 2 liter bottle of Diet Pepsi? I have to make some trivial changes to my life? Fuck that! Just give me a pill. I ain't doin none of that "doctor prescribed" shit. What do they know? I've done my research and I'm doin' just fine. Now hand me my cane so I can get up them two steps. This 30 year old body ain't what it used to be. /s
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Getting up and walking around for at least 10 minutes a day can "drastically" reduce your risk
I have to make some trivial changes to my life? Fuck that! Just give me a pill.
A Viagra would get it done.
Re:No way (Score:4, Insightful)
Spoken like a true Ozempic salescritter.
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I especially like the ad for that weight loss drug that claims great things when "combined with diet and exercise." Ha! I used diet and exercise alone to lose 47.5 lbs last year. IOW, you could sell pure sugar and it would make you lose weight if you combined it with sufficient "diet and exercise." What a scam!
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with better nutrition, exercise
Limit highly processed foods and foods and drinks with a lot of added sugar.
Getting up and walking around for at least 10 minutes a day can "drastically" reduce your risk
You mean I have to do something like this every day? I can't eay my bag of pork rinds for lunch every day and chase 'em down with a 2 liter bottle of Diet Pepsi? I have to make some trivial changes to my life? Fuck that! Just give me a pill. I ain't doin none of that "doctor prescribed" shit. What do they know? I've done my research and I'm doin' just fine. Now hand me my cane so I can get up them two steps. This 30 year old body ain't what it used to be. /s
Remember decreasing your risk of stroke increases your risk of dying from something else. Not that I want to die from a massive stroke, but from what I've seen, it beats hell out of cancer, and dementia.
I'm hoping for a massive stroke or heart attack myself, given that no one makes it out of here alive.
All that said, I do my best to get exercise and watch my calorie intake. I won't give up meat though - after a disaster years ago when I tried vegetarianism, and it wrecked my metabolism and took about 6
Re:No way (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't recommend stroke. You often just lose capability rather than die of a massive stroke. I had one in 2020 - I got extremely lucky and lost virtually nothing. Had to relearn how to swallow. It's called a 'lateral medullary stroke' that was caused by dissecting one of my vertebral arteries, literally twisting my neck too quickly and severing an artery on my spine. Caused a 1cm portion of the brain stem to die. Watching the other people in rehab struggle to use forks, write, walk and speak convinces me that you probably want to get something else.
Re:No way (Score:5, Interesting)
Thank you for relating both your personal experience as well as your observations of others struggling with the aftermath of a stroke. Happy to hear that you were able to recover. This gives those of us who have not experienced a stroke hope if it happens to us along with motivation to be aware of the symptoms and to not delay getting emergency medical treatment.
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A heart attack is survivable (Score:3)
I survived what could be called a "massive" heart attack in the form of a complete blockage of the right coronary artery (RCA). I had prior episodes of "chest pain" in the form of intense heartburn and had been given a clean bill of health from a nuclear imaging of cardiac perfusion stress test, but this one just felt more intense than the others so I called it in.
There was a study done in Berlin that fully 80% of people who died from a heart attack reported symptoms to someone around them. The problem
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I am now doing the 30 minutes/day of vigorous walking, have reduced red meat consumption but not cut it out entirely and I am indeed doing maintenance drugs.
That is a pretty good counterpoint to my post. In a post heart attack situation, I'd do the maintenance meds as well.
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Remember decreasing your risk of stroke increases your risk of dying from something else.
Doing those recommended things also improves the quality of your life before you die of something else. The older you get the greater the difference it makes.
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quote: Remember decreasing your risk of stroke increases your risk of dying from something else. Not that I want to die from a massive stroke, but from what I've seen, it beats hell out of cancer, and dementia. end quote Actually, your risk of cancer and dementia _also_ go down with compliance with the advice given to prevent stroke.
Sure, I'd never deny the benefits of controlling weight and getting exercise. Even if they don't help you live a lot longer, you'll feel better. And rather than the standard mantras about food, moderation is the key. We're still going to die, and since that is 100 percent certain, we're just shuffling percentages around. You'll note that the standard line is that our problems are always our fault.
My inconvenient truth isn't all that popular for certain. But it is not logical to not consider that things
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Spoken like someone young enough to only have a mid-seven-digit UID.
Young bodies can tolerate a lot of abuse, and bad habits are easy to form. It's not helpful to trivialize the effort it takes to adopt healthy habits after decades of not having them, or to maintain them in the face of work and family and whatever other parts of one's life want attention. Healthy eating takes regular discipline, and regular exercise requires spending at least a moderate amount of time each week (75 minutes of vigorous exe
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When it comes to getting exercise, the returns for doing the absolute minimum are astronomical and then decrease... Consider e.g. the increase in fitness vs time investment resulting from going from diddly to going for a jog for 10-15 minutes every day after work, compared to the kind of insane effort it takes any normal person to go from running a 6m00 mile to a 5m00 mile.
On the scale between "please, I beg you, eat something every day that isn't ultra-proce
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There are subjective guidelines for "vigorous", mostly that vigorous means you can only say a few words at a time or cannot hold conversation, but the objective advice is usually "70% to 85% of your maximum heart rate" relative either to zero or your resting heart rate. The latter is also called the "heart rate reserve" (HRR) method or Karvonen formula. This page [mayoclinic.org] gives examples, although other sources imply a much lower threshold for vigorous -- my smart watch for example, counts running 6 mph as vigorous
That 10 minutes a day thing is bullshit (Score:1)
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So what's new? (Score:5, Insightful)
We've all known this for decades.
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Probably a slow news day...
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Probably a slow news day...
Gee, can’t wait for AI to make this concept obsolete. If we thought we had an email spam problem..
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Indeed. Although custom-SPAM via LLM is probably far too expensive.
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Well...
If I recall correctly, the original Mediterranean Diet study was recalled and some studies I've seen put the improvements as slight (biggest benefit is probably limiting processed foods). Not to mention most Americans associate it with pasta, which has its own problems.
Exercise is always good, but if you dive down into the details of "150 minutes of moderate aerobic activity"; most people think they get that just walking to the car. Sustained aerobic activity is probably more accurate, but then you
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Yeah, references to saturated fat, red meat, it's just another cut/paste cherry picked 'story' from the 1960s that misses the last 50 years of nutrition research.
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Well, don't confuse the "Mediterranean Diet" with an actual diet. It's more of a philosophy of eating, and it's mostly common sense. It doesn't specify calories or meal plans, nor do you buy supplements. This makes it rather hard to test, as there aren't anything in the way of controls.
If you look for a specific "diet" for it, the closest is probably the Dash diet, which is basically a structured, calorie-moderated plan wrapped around the ideas of the Mediterranean Diet. And because it's more prescriptive,
Re: So what's new? (Score:2)
Good news, people who eat solely meat and eggs and butter also fix their diabetes and CVD. Humans don't need to eat carbs. Or vegetables, although eating some probably won't hurt most people.
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Can you provide evidence?
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It's "carnivore", a diet promoted by people who don't understand teeth or evolutionary biology. It's also rock bottom for long term sustainability. Soon enough it'll get thrown on the stack with its precursors.
Re: So what's new? (Score:2)
Every year? (Score:5, Funny)
Can you imagine having a stroke every year? Scary.
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Clearly, they are doing it wrong. You are generally not supposed to survive the 3rd one. American incompetence strokes again.
Re:Every year? (Score:5, Funny)
A man in New York is mugged every 60 seconds (Score:1)
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It's like peanut allergies. Just introduce tiny strokes on a regular basis and you'll eventually become immune.
Yes that, nutrition ..... (Score:2)
And a little capoeira angola..... :-)
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I got lucky, I married a Peruvian. In Peru good food is a religion (which is why it's a foodie Mecca), and her family are high priests. We cook every day, and unless we make chicharron (not the nasty pork rinds the Mexicans call chicharron, the real thing) it's pretty much impossible to eat an unhealthy diet.
Something that is common to many of the ethnic diets popularly believed to be more healthy is that meat is only a minor ingredient in any meal. A steak which in the US is considered one serving is su
or... (Score:2)
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Indeed, walk your dog every morning before work and every evening before/after dinner for a week and you will never be allowed to skip that walk again for as long as they live.
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Really? (Score:2)
But up to 80% of strokes may be preventable with better nutrition, exercise and
Nutrition and exercise? Well, I'm glad you're here to tell us these things.
I know how to prevent virtually all strokes (Score:3)
Do like Logan's Run and kill everyone at 25.
Fewer cancer deaths that way, too.
"Still need" (Score:2)
>"But in addition, the guidelines now recommend that doctors consider new weight-loss drugs like Ozempic, Wegovy, Mounjaro and Zepbound for people with obesity or diabetes. (Though "people still need to eat well and get exercise"
If people ate well and got excerise, they wouldn't need those drugs, because they wouldn't be obese and extremely few would have diabetes.... I am not saying it is easy, but let's get real. The reason for those drugs is because people WON'T eat well and get exercise, so what is
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Also the regular culprits don't make much money from people eating healthy fruits, vegetables and legumes, as well as simple exercise like walking..
I bet a lot of people 'look down' on this for that very reason.
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I'm a (masters) competitive swimmer. I did a 90km cycling time trial this summer. I used to race bikes through the summer and the fall. I eat well--plenty of vegetables and lean protein. I go to the gym and lift relatively heavy--my goal is to have a 400lbs deadlift by the end of 2025.
I have high cholesterol and I take a statin to keep my LDL in line (my total cholesterol without it is over 7--insanely high). I just got some blood test results back and my AC1 is 6.2%--that's pre-diabetes. I'll be wearing a
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It's possible cholesterol isn't an issue for your particular body. I'd get some other opinions (apologies if you already have) - to use a car analogy (this is slashdot after all) - it seems like a stretch to worry about your radiator clogging up when you're running your engine at 6K RPMs every day. Just sayin'.
Good luck with the deadlift BTW!
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I've seen a few people about it, yeah. My family has a history of heart disease, I think I'm just better about going to the doctor than they were. My grandfather had a few bypass surgeries; I'd like to avoid that if I could. (In fairness, that was also the era of smokers, so I'm not discounting that as a factor.)
But it's also worth noting that statins are cheap, even if they're not covered by insurance (at least in Canada), they have almost no side effects for most people (there's good evidence that any mus
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Same here - about struggling with grip strength. Grew up running track and cross country in HS and college. Never had any upper body strength. Got into KokoFit for a while (ever hear of them?) and so into some weight lifting. Just to build some strength for Spartan races in my 50's. Anyhow, grip strength has always been an issue.
"weight-loss drugs like..." (Score:1)
Except that they're not weight loss drugs, they're diabetes drugs that have a side effect of hunger supression. It was hard enough for diabetic patients to get these drugs when it was only them that needed them, now that they're labelled "weight loss" drugs the demand far exceeds supply. The result: fat, rich people that lack self-control and are too lazy to exercise are snarfing up the supply while people who actually need these drugs to live are
Fewer MRNA vaccines might help (Score:2, Interesting)
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Funny how the vaccines cause you to generate spike (Score:2, Insightful)
But that couldn't possibly cause strokes in recipients, despite the lack of modulation and controls and lack of accounting for individual variation on how much spike the vaccines could cause to be generated, for how long, and in which bodily organs.
You do you. Go ahead and inject yourself with an experiment jab which in no known universe has enjoyed the requisite studies needed to prove it is "safe and effective." Just don't try to force it on others
I'll Take Door #3 (Score:2)
"Getting up and walking around for at least 10 minutes a day can "drastically" reduce your risk,"
This is a winner. Bought big, heavy, club-level elliptical crosstrainer and pump the dinghies out of it. Also bought 43" LG TV and a roll-around stand that is set right beside the crosstrainer, and this combo works great for weight control. TV tunes my Plex media server and I am going thru my favorite movies while I ride the elliptical. I'm 77, and a lot of other options aren't my options - tried recumbent
poultry, fish and seafood (Score:2)
So avian flu, and micro plastics hmm
Schools need to tech kids how to cook and even shop, back in the walking to skool backwards in snow days we had actual cooking, sewing and home economics classes. That's were I got the cooking bug along with mechanics in mechanics class.
Translation: (Score:2)
We hate all fat people. If they don't stop being fat, they'll die. We approve of this message.
Wrong food for our actual lifestyle (Score:2)
We are eating 3 times a day without exercising.
Carbs aren't natural food , our ancestors ate meat and vegetable when they could't find any meat.
Also we are fooled by tv ads saying that breakfast with cereals full of sugar and ornage juice are perfect food. this is wrong and slow poison.
Are your animals eating sugar ? no they don't even look at them , why do we ???
Remember , don't eat if you're not hungy
Fruits are carbs (Score:2)
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People aren't generally referring to apples and bananas when they use the word "carbs". They're usually referring to things like bread, pasta, and Twinkies which require various degrees of agriculture, civilization, and industrialization.
Repeat what you already said... (Score:2)
That really helps. Almost as much as you ignoring all the parts of my life that get worse if I attempt to follow what you recommend. Or how your information sources fail to solve most problems in general and you just keep pointing at correlations pretending you're solving something (instead of checking ALL the people you attempt to apply this to).
Conflicting info about the diet part (Score:2)
From TFA:
"The group recommends foods in the so-called Mediterranean diet such as fruits, vegetables, whole grains and olive oil, which can help keep cholesterol levels down. It suggests limiting red meat and other sources of saturated fat. Instead, get your protein from beans, nuts, poultry, fish and seafood. Limit highly processed foods and foods and drinks with a lot of added sugar. This can also reduce your calorie intake, which helps keep weight in check."
In short: all reports and papers about the healt