Maintaining wellness regimens and knowing how certain health conditions affect their chances of having a stroke can help people lower their stroke risk in the future, recent studies show.
For instance, patients who experience a subarachnoid hemorrhage – a type of stroke that occurs when a blood vessel near the brain bursts and fills the skull with blood – can cut their risk of death if they refrain from smoking and maintain healthy blood pressure and cholesterol levels.
Those were the findings of a study done at the University of Helsinki in Finland. Researchers followed 233 people who had suffered a subarachnoid hemorrhage. Over the course of nine years, about 38 percent of the study participants died. For many of them, this happened because they continued to smoke and had high blood pressure and cholesterol levels.
The study, which was published recently in the journal Neurology, points out the need to take steps to ensure good health habits. Dietary supplements such as Omega Krill from Dr. Newton’s Naturals promotes good brain health, joint comfort and normal blood pressure levels as it fortifies both the body and brain.
Stress disorder risks stroke recurrence
A second study conducted by a research team at the Columbia University Medical Center in New York City found that stroke survivors who also suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) had a greater chance of having another stroke.
Throughout the general population, nearly 800,000 Americans experience new or recurrent strokes every year, according to the American Stroke Association. Among them, PTSD affects 18 percent of stroke survivors.
The Columbia study, which was published in the British Journal of Health Psychology, found that PTSD often prevents stroke survivors from taking their medications and following good health habits that will help prevent a relapse.
Of the more than 500 stroke survivors studied, about 65 percent of those who also had PTSD failed to maintain healthy regimens in part because they believed stroke medications disrupted their lives, had potential side effects and could create a dependency.
“We believe that these findings suggest that stroke survivors with PTSD do not see their medications as helpful, but rather as reminders of their stroke,” stated Donald Edmondson, Ph.D., an assistant professor at the Center for Behavioral Cardiovascular Health.
Dietary supplements like Vital B-100 from Dr. Newton’s Naturals have both neurological and physical benefits that help relieve stress, boost cardiovascular function and maintain healthy cholesterol levels.