How the Majority of Strokes Could Be Prevented (apnews.com)
- Reference: 0175440885
- News link: https://science.slashdot.org/story/24/11/09/2220224/how-the-majority-of-strokes-could-be-prevented
- Source link: https://apnews.com/article/stroke-risk-death-nutrition-exercise-ozempic-mounjaro-5fee3375b627377b6a39565ce2a647c5
> Stroke was the [2]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 [3]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, [4]Mounjaro and Zepbound for people with obesity or diabetes. (Though "people still need to [5]eat well and get exercise , cautions Dr. Fadi Nahab, a stroke expert at Emory University Hospital.")
[1] https://apnews.com/article/stroke-risk-death-nutrition-exercise-ozempic-mounjaro-5fee3375b627377b6a39565ce2a647c5
[2] https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/73/wr/pdfs/mm7331a1-H.pdf
[3] https://apnews.com/article/ultraprocessed-foods-healthy-diet-0501eb985016149541e6cc727e55dfea
[4] https://apnews.com/article/weight-loss-mounjaro-wegovy-tirzepatide-9718480e110eace3e91e0a2bcdc5e536
[5] https://apnews.com/article/wegovy-zepbound-intermittent-pause-fe569b7d035137d8bd38865d584cb1a3
So what's new? (Score:5, Insightful)
We've all known this for decades.
Re: (Score:2)
Probably a slow news day...
Re: (Score:2)
> 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..
Re: (Score:2)
Indeed. Although custom-SPAM via LLM is probably far too expensive.
Re: (Score:2)
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
Re: (Score:1)
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.
Every year? (Score:5, Funny)
> ...more than half a million Americans have a stroke every year.
Can you imagine having a stroke every year? Scary.
Re: (Score:2)
Clearly, they are doing it wrong. You are generally not supposed to survive the 3rd one. American incompetence strokes again.
Re:Every year? (Score:4, Funny)
Half the country gets a stroke every four years, when their candidate doesn't win the Presidential election.
A man in New York is mugged every 60 seconds (Score:1)
We'd like you to meet that man -SNL
Yes that, nutrition ..... (Score:2)
And a little capoeira angola..... :-)
or... (Score:2)
Walk The Dog
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:2)
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
No way (Score:3)
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
Re: (Score:2)
>> 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: (Score:2)
Spoken like a true Ozempic salescritter.
Re: (Score:2)
> 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: (Score:2)
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.
Re: (Score:2)
I do the maintenance drugs, and greatly modified my diet and exercise some years ago. Two friends had strokes, and a relative had a humiliating and arduous course of multi-infarct dementia. On the flip side of drugs, this latter person might've been sent downhill more quickly by a Vioxx prescription, which gave some classic drug reaction symptoms before discontinuing.
A heart attack is survivable (Score:2)
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
Re: (Score:2)
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
Re: (Score:2)
It depends on what "vigorous" really means.
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
That 10 minutes a day thing is bullshit (Score:1)
The actual studies show it requires significantly more exercise to reduce your risk but doctors don't like to talk about that because it's incredibly discouraging and it would rather try and get people to do something.