Stroke Prevention and Anti-Stroke DIET
Avoid tobacco and alcohol
If you smoke or chew tobacco quit immediately. It doubles the risk of having a stroke by lowering the level of oxygen in the body and increasing blood pressure. If you drink alcohol, do so in moderation as consuming more than recommended levels causes diseases that have negative effects on blood circulation, such as diabetes and high blood pressure.
Make time for regular physical activity, through exercises, sports and yoga in your daily routine. If you are recovering from illness or a surgery and are on bed rest, make sure you exercise your legs slowly, by raising them up and down 10-15 times every day.
A low-salt, low-fat diet, rich in fibre through whole grains andpulses, vegetables and fruit can prevent stroke.Eat a handful of unsalted non-fried nuts everyday.
Know your body
- Blood pressure Have your blood pressure checked at least twicea year. At the advice of a qualified doctor, you may need to modify your lifestyle and begin medical treatment to keep it under control.
- Heart matters Consult your physician if you have circulatory problems that could increase the risk of stroke. Find out from your doctor whether you your arteries are in good shape or if they encourage the formation of blood clots that could lead to a stroke.
- Cholesterol levels Find out if you have high levels of harmful cholesterol, and if you do, then lower it by making some lifestyle changes such as regular physical activity and changes in diet. If the levels persist to be high despite the lifestyle changes, then your doctor is the best person for advice on lowering your cholesterol.
- Diabetes in check If you have diabetes, follow your doctors advice to control the condition
Other Strategies for Stroke Prevention
If you've suffered a stroke I'm sure you wish you'd gone on an anti stroke diet when you had the opportunity. Or if your family has a history of strokes, don't wait until that unfortunate experience happens to you before you benefits from the information in this article.
One of the most frightening things about stroke is how suddenly it can strike, often without any warning.
It's true that even then it's not too late to lessen the effects of a stroke to a certain extent by adopting the right diet, but there's no way you can reverse all the damage done. Don't you agree that it's SO much better if you could prevent the problem altogether?!
Even if the stroke itself comes out of the blue, the problems that cause it can be years in the making.
High blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes and metabolic syndrome are all risk factors in causing stroke - and they're all factors that can be reduced significantly by choosing the right foods.
"Your diet plays a critical role in preventing stroke", says Thomas A. Pearson, MD, Ph.D, professor of epidemiology and chairman of the department of community and preventive medicine at the University of Rochester in New York.
In a study of more than 87,000 nurses, for example, researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health found that women who ate the most fruits and vegetables were 40% less likely to have a stroke than those who ate the least.
In another study, this one conducted at the University of California, San Diego, researchers discovered that people who ate a single serving of potassium-rich fruits or vegetables a day were also able to cut their risk of stroke by 40%.
Strategies to Include in Your Anti Stroke Diet
1. Reduce High Blood Pressure with Dairy and Potassium
An Anti Stroke Diet could have a tremendous effect on your blood pressure as well.
A blood pressure over 135/85 doubles your risk for a stroke. How is that possible?
When arteries in the brain are pummeled by high-speed blood flow, they become thicker and ultimately squeeze shut.
Under pressure, small arteries may rupture. High blood pressure also increases the risk of developing clot-producing plaque in the artery walls.
If everyone with high blood pressure in the United States brought it under control, more than 300,000 strokes annually could be prevented.
What to include in your Stroke Diet?
Low-fat dairy products - In one large study, researchers from the Honolulu Heart Program found that men who didn't drink milk were twice as likely to have a stroke as those who drank at least 16 oz./450 g. daily.
People who took calcium supplements without accompanying dairy foods didn't show the same benefits. So other nutrients in milk appeared to be protective against high blood pressure and strokes.
But make sure to go for low-fat or fat-free milk or dairy products, since the saturated fat in whole milk may offset its benefits.
Potassium-rich foods - Not only potassium fight high blood pressure, it also appears to make blood less likely to clot, which can reduce the risk of stroke even more.
2. Reverse Metabolic Syndrome
Metabolic syndrome is a combination of prediabetic conditions including insulin resistance - which occurs when your cells stop responding quickly to insulin's command to absorb blood sugar - plus slightly high blood pressure, blood sugar and triglycerides, plus low levels of good HDL cholesterol.
Nearly everyone with this condition is overweight.
Having metabolic syndrome doubles the risk of stroke and gives people suffering from it (and there's millions) a very good reason to adopt the Anti Stroke Diet.
How to reverse it? Eating high-fibre, low-sugar foods, lean protein, good fats such as nuts, fatty cold-water fish (or fish oil capsules) and flaxseed.
Eating fruits, vegetables and whole grain products low on the glycemic index (a ranking system based on how foods affects your blood sugar levels) also keeps blood sugar and insulin levels lower.
This can cut cravings and help you lose weight and can almost instantly make cells throughout your body more sensitive to insulin's signals.
Foods to avoid: doughnuts and sugar-laden foods, sugary soft drinks and white bread, which send sugar levels soaring very fast.
Foods to include: most whole grains, beans, fruits and vegetables, which digest more slowly and so release sugar into the blood stream more slowly.
You can also slow the rise in blood sugar after a meal by combining a high-fibre or high-protein food with a refined carbohydrate, if you must have it. Like, for example, have some navy beans with instant rice.
3. Lose Weight
Not only what you eat but how much you eat can play a role in stroke prevention.
Being overweight raises a woman's stroke risk by 75%. Obesity raises it by 100%.
When Harvard University researchers compared body weight and stroke risk in 116,759 nurses, they found that overweight women were two to four times more likely to have high blood pressure, the leading cause of stroke, as well as diabetes and high cholesterol, all risks of stroke.
Adopting the Anti Stroke Diet will help you shed unwanted weight and lower the risk of stroke as well as benefiting you in many other ways.
4. Control Diabetes with Slow Carbs
Having diabetes makes a woman's risk for stroke two to four times higher than normal.
An even more potent threat for women than for men, diabetes seems to increase women's stroke odds by raising their blood pressure and boosting the likelihood of brain-threatening blood clots.
What's the best food strategy to include in your Anti Stroke Diet?
Keep diabetes under control by choosing "good", "slow", complex carbs like fruits, vegetables, beans and whole grains.
These keep blood sugar lower and steadier and help control levels of insulin in your body.
Experts suspects that surges of insulin after a meal heavy in refined carbs contribute to biochemical changes in the body that promote high blood pressure and blood clot formation - two big stroke risks.
5. Rebalance Cholesterol with Better Fats
Both high levels of "bad" LDL cholesterol and low levels of "good" HDL cholesterol raise stroke risk.
A lack of good HDL leaves your body unable to carry away the bad-guy LDL, giving it free rein to lodge inside the lining of the artery walls and start the process that leads to clogged arteries.
So your Anti Stroke Diet must include much less saturated fat and more good fats. Choosing olive and canola oil over other fats for cooking, and snacking on a small handful of walnuts can help maintain healthy HDL levels and reduce LDL levels. (Adding exercise will help considerably).
At the same time, skip full-fat milk, cheese, sour cream and ice cream and turn down that fat-marbled meat. What you don't eat can be just as important as what you do, adds Dr. Pearson.
Research has shown, for example, that people getting the most fat in their diets - especially the saturated fat in meats and other animal foods - are much more likely to have a stroke than those eating more healthful foods.
This is because a diet that's high in saturated fat raises cholesterol levels, which is notorious for clogging arteries in the heart, but can also block blood vessels in and leading to the brain.
For most people, limiting meat servings to 3 or 4 oz./85 to 110 g. a day, using little (or no) butter, swithcing to low-fat dairy foods, and avoiding high-fat snacks is all it takes to keep cholesterol at healthy levels.
If your cholesterol is already high you need to be even more careful regarding the types of fats you choose to eat. Keep to the Anti Stroke Diet and your cholesterol levels will improve as well.
6. Choose to Eat Lots of Fruits and Vegetables
To be really effective, the Anti Stroke Diet has to include lots of fruits and vegetables.
When researchers from the well-known Framinham Heart Study group scrutinized the diets of more than 830 men, they found that for every three serving of fruits and vegetables people ate every day, their risk of stroke declined 22%.
For one thing, they're a rich source of dietary fibre, which has been shown to lower cholesterol.
For another, they contain powerful antioxidants that prevent cholesterol from being oxidized and damage the artery walls.
7. Drink Green Tea
Along with fruits and vegetables, tea (especially green but black as well) is an excellent source of flavonoids and should be included in your Anti Stroke Diet.
When Dr. Michael Hertog, Ph.D., of the National Institute of Public Health and Environmental Protection in Netherlands, studied more than 550 men ages 50 to 69, he found that those who got most of their flavonoids from tea were able to reduce their risk of stroke by 73%, compared with those who got the least of these healthful compounds.
He found that those who drink at least 5 cups of tea daily can reduce their stroke risk by more than 2/3, compared with those who drink less than 3 cups a day.
One explanation for the anti-stroke activity of green tea may be the high concentration of antioxidants, which might protect blood vessels from damage.
One study found green tea chemicals even stronger in antioxidant effect than vitamin E and C, well known for their potent antioxidant powers.
8. Alcohol: Good News, Bad News
Light to moderate drinking could help save you from a stroke, but heavy drinking may bring on a stroke, according to new evidence.
British researchers recently documented that those consuming a drink or two a day were only 60 to 70% as vulnerable as non-drinkers to either a haemorrhagic (bleeding) stroke or clot-induced stroke.
On the other hand, heavy drinkers - three to four drinks a day - were three times more prone to strokes than non-drinkers.
Even worse, a University of Helsinki study found heavy drinkers six times more susceptible to strokes!
Alcohol, the Finnish neurologists remind us, is a brain poison, and in heavy doses promotes brain embolisms, clots and ischaemia due to blood changes and contraction of blood vessels - all preludes to strokes.
The Finns also found that moderate drinkers were only 6% as likely to suffer strokes as non-drinkers!
Bottom line: A drink or two a day, if you already drink, may be included in the Anti Stroke Diet, but it's not a good idea to take up drinking to avert strokes if you don't already drink.
If you are a heavy drinker, do cut back, for few events are more tragic than a stroke!!!
9. Avoid or Cut Back on Salt
Even if salt doesn't raise everyone's blood pressure, it may nevertheless damage brain tissue, helping induce mini strokes, says Dr. Louis Tobian Jr., University of Minnesota's hypertension expert.
He came to this conclusion after tests in which he fed rats either a high-salt or low-salt diet.
The high-salt diet induced deadly strokes in the animals even though it didn't raise their blood pressure.
Within 15 weeks, an astounding 100% of the high-salt-fed animals were dead, compared with only 12% of the low-salt animals.
The brains of the dead rats on the high-salt diets revealed injured arteries and dead tissue, caused by a series of fatal mini strokes.
Dr. Tobian advises cutting back on salt to avoid stroke even if salt doesn't boost your blood pressure.
This is especially critical for people over age 65 and all African-Americans, two groups especially vulnerable to salt's damage, he says.
Anti Stroke Diet Prescription
So, to recap, if you're worried about strokes follow this Anti Stroke Diet:
Stroke Prevention with Fruits and Vegetables
Every health practitioner and researcher agrees that stroke prevention with fruits and vegetables is the most sensible strategy that we could adopt. But the questions are:
How do fruits and vegetables help us in preventing stroke?
Which fruits and vegetables are the best at stroke prevention?
Over two decades ago, researchers discovered that eating fruits and vegetables prevented strokes and diminished the damage if they occurred.
British researchers at Cambridge University discovered that older people who ate the most fresh green vegetables and fresh fruits were less likely to die of strokes.
A Norwegian study found that men who ate the most vegetables had a 45% lower risk of stroke.
It also found that women who ate lots of fruit were 1/3 less likely to have a stroke.
Stroke Prevention with Carrots
The dramatic finding of a recent large-scale Harvard study that tracked nearly 90,000 women nurses for eight years confirmed those earlier findings.
They found that eating carrots five times a week or more could slush your risk of stroke by an astounding 2/3 or 68% compared with eating carrots only once a month or less!
Spinach was also a particularly potent stroke deterrent.
Part of the protection comes from beta carotene in carrots and spinach.
A previous Harvard study found that eating the extra beta carotene in about one and a half carrots, 3/4 of a cup of mashed sweet potatoes or three cups of cooked spinach every day shaved 40% off stroke rates.
The drop was evident in those who ate 15 to 20 mg of beta carotene daily versus those who ate only 6 mg.
What makes carrots, spinach and other such carotene-rich vegetables so good at stroke prevention is probably their antioxidant activity, speculated lead reasercher JoAnn E. Manson, M.D. of Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School.
The carotene inhibits cholesterol from becoming toxic and able to form plaque and clots in arteries, she theorized.
More remarkable is new research showing how important it is to have lots of beta carotene and other vitamin A in your bloodstream should you suffer a stroke.
The vitamin may prevent your death or disability from the stroke, according to Belgian researchers at the University of Brussels, who analyzed the blood of 80 patients within 24 hours after they had suffered strokes.
They discovered that stroke patients with above-average amounts of vitamin A, including beta carotene, had more chances to survive, were more likeky to have less neurological damage and recover completely!
How is that possible?
When your brain is deprived of oxygen, as in a stroke, cells begin to mulfunction, leading to a series of events culminating in oxidative damage to nerve cells leading to their death.
But if you have lots of vitamin A in your blood, researchers speculate, it can interfere at many different stages of this cascade of events, lessening brain damage and chances of death.
Foods rich in beta carotene - which converts in the body into vitamin A - in addition to carrots are dark green leafy vegetables, such as spinach, collards and kale, as well as dark orange vegetables such as sweet potatoes and pumpkin.
Such foods are also high in potassium, another potent antitode against strokes.
Stroke Prevention with Fruits and Vegetables Rich in Potassium
Eating just one extra serving of potassium-rich foods every day may reduce your risk of stroke by 40%.
That's what researchers discovered by analizing the diets of a group of 859 men and women over age 50, living in southern California.
The investigators documentd that a small difference of potassium in the diet predicted who would die of a stroke twelve years later.
Remakably, nobody with the highest intake of potassium (more than 3,500 mg a day) died of a stroke.
However, those who regularly ate the least potassium (less than 1,950 mg per day) had much higher fatal stroke rates than all the others.
Among those who skimped the most on potassium, the odds of stroke deaths shot up 2.6 times in men and 4.8 times in women.
Further, the more potassium-rich foods the subjects ate, generally, the fewer strokes they had.
Researchers concluded that with every extra daily 400 mg. of potassium in food, the odds of a fatal stroke dropped 40%! One very good reason to adopt stroke prevention with fruits and vegetables!
You can find the extra 400 mg of potassium in the following foods:
- 1/2 cup cooked fresh spinach (423 mg)
- 1/2 cup cooked fresh beet green (654 mg)
- 1 tsp. blackstrap molasses (499 mg)
- 1 cup tomato juice (536 mg)
- 1 cup fresh orange juice (472 mg)
- 1/4 cantaloupe melon (412 mg)
- 1/2 cup acorn squash (446 mg)
- 10 dried apricot halves (482 mg)
- 2 carrots (466 mg)
- 1/2 cup cooked sweet potato (455 mg)
- 1/2 cooked green lima beans (484 mg)
- 1 cup skim milk (418 mg)
- 1/2 avocado (742 mg)
- 1 banana (451 mg)
- 2 oz./60 g. almonds (440 mg)
- 1 oz./ 30 g. roasted soybeans (417 mg)
- 17 oz./480 g. baked potato without skin (512 mg)
- 17 oz./480 g. baked potato with skin (844 mg)
- 1/2 cup baked beans (613 mg)
How Potassium Helps in Stroke Prevention
We know that high potassium foods help lower blood pressure, but potassium exhibits additional powers in stroke prevention regardless of its effect on blood pressure, according to University of Minnesota hypertension expert Dr. Loius Tobian, Jr.
In tests, he fed rats that had high blood pressure either a high-potassium diet or a "normal" potassium diet.
Forty percent on the "normal" potassium diet suffered small strokes, evidenced by bleeding in the brain.
No brain haemorrhages occured in rats on high potassium.
Dr. Tobian's theory is that extra potassium kept artery walls elastic and functioning normally, thus immunizing blood vessels against damage from high blood pressure.
The same thing may happen in humans.
The critical margin of 400 mg. of potassium is so modest that there's no reason for not including any of the above fruits and vegetables in your diet.
If you think that it can protect your brain from the devastating and often irrevesible effects of stroke, wouldn't it be worth it to eat every day an extra quarter of a cantaloupe, half an avocado, one small baked potato, ten dried apricots or half cup baked beans?
As the causes of stroke are the same as the causes of heart disease and high blood pressure, the foods that help prevent these conditions are also indicated for preventing strokes.
High Blood Pressure and Stroke
There's no doubts among researchers about the connection between high blood pressure and stroke. So it makes sense that to reduce high blood pressure is the best way to prevent strokes.
When your blood pressure is higher than 140/90 mmHg (millimeters of mercury), your stroke risk doubles.
And for every 20 mmHg increase in systolic pressure (the first number in your blood pressure reading) or 10 mmHg increase in diastolic pressure (the second number), your risk doubles again.
I'm sure that by now you've become familiar with the fact that a diet high in butter, bacon, burgers and processed foods puts you on a fast track to a heart attack.
But at the same time such diet increases your risk of a stroke, which is also caused by narrowed arteries - in this case blood vessels that feed the brain.
Since the underlying problems are similar, so are the solutions - not smoking, doing more exercise, losing weight and, of course, changing your diet, all of which can help control or reduce high blood pressure, considered the leading modifiable risk factor for stroke.
Of course, as with heart disease, there are contributing factors for stroke over which you have no control, such as age, gender and race. So, it makes sense to act on the ones you can influence, doesn't it?
A massive study of thousand of women, called the Nurses Health Study, showed that eating the typical Western-style diet increased high blood pressure and stroke risk by 58%, whereas consuming more whole grains, fruits, vegetables and fish - the same foods that guard against so many other diseases - lowered that risk by 30%.
DASH Diet for Hypertension
The DASH (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension) Diet, which is low in saturated fat and cholesterol and high in fibre, low-fat and fat-free dairy products, and fruits and vegetables, has been shown to decrease blood pressure by 5.5/3.0 mmHg, which is enough to cut your stroke risk by 27%.
Go a step further and reduce your sodium intake to about 2/3 teaspoon of salt per day and you can lower your pressure by 8.9/4.5 mmHg.
That's about the same reduction you can get by taking a single blood pressure medication.
Even on their own the foods that make up the DASH Diet are potent stroke fighters.
Eating plenty of whole-grain fibre lowers risk of high blood pressure and stroke by about 40% and other research shows that eating fruit and vegetables daily reduces it by 20 to 40%.
If you decide to adopt the DASH Diet, you can lower your blood pressure by another 4 points or so by getting some regular exercise, maintaining a healthy weight and moderating your alcohol intake.
Here's what it takes to do the DASH Diet:
Grains: Six to eight serving a day, such as a slice of wholemeal bread or 1/2 cup of brown rice, pasta or cereal.
Fruits and Vegetables: Fout to five servings a day, such as a piece of fruit (such as an apple or a medium banana), 1/2 cup of chopped fruit or cooked vegetables, a cup of leafy vegetables, 1/4 cup of dried fruit, or 1/2 to 3/4 cup of fruit or vegetable juice.
Low-fat/fat-free dairy: Two to three servings a day, such as a cup of milk or yogurt.
Lean meat, poultry or fish: 6 oz./170 g. a day.
Nuts, seeds and legumes: Four to five servings a week, such as 1/2 cup of beans, 1/3 cup of nuts ot 2 tablespoons of peanut butter.
Sweet and added sugars: Kept to the very minimum or less than five servings a week, such as a tablespoon of sugar or jam or 1/2 cup of sorbet.
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