Sex Triggers Stroke for Woman, 35

Doctors attribute several factors to the stroke suffered by an unidentified 35-year-old woman who began feeling weakness in her left arm just minutes after engaging in sexual intercourse. The very act of sex itself causes changes in blood pressure but the woman also had a clot in her brain, thought to be caused by birth control pills, a side effect of which can be an increased risk of blood clots and stroke. Further examination revealed a common heart defect, too. Read more

Fewer Strokes When Elderly Patients Take Cholesterol-Lowering Drugs

By 2010, an estimated 20% of the United States population will be 65 years old or older.  It’s this same age group that experiences the highest number of heart attacks and strokes but cholesterol-lowering drugs, which stave off these events, aren’t prescribed as often for people in this age bracket as they are for younger patients.  Researchers at Wayne State University have just published their research findings that  indicate these drugs are just as beneficial for older patients as they are for younger ones. Read more

Dream of the Future: Chocolate as Brain Food

As if chocolate lovers needed yet another reason to indulge guilt free, researchers from Harvard University and Mars, Incorporated, have released their findings that a naturally occurring substance in cocoa can actually bring long-term improvements to the flow of blood to the brain in ways that may have the potential of easing the damage of a stroke or slowing the progression of dementia.  Currently, one in seven older Americans is battling age-related dementia. Read more

Young Woman’s Every Cigarette Counts When Tallying Stroke Risk

While the evidence is unavoidably clear that smoking cigarettes increases a person’s risk of having a stroke, there is relatively little data that identifies the dosage amount that places a smoker in the danger zone. Researchers at the University of Maryland School of Medicine have just announced the results of their study which quantified smoking habits with risk of stroke in young women between the ages of 15 and 49. Read more

STRokE DOC Puts Experts at the Scene

One out of every three US residents lives in a rural area that makes getting immediate medical care in times of emergency a sometimes-risky predicament.  Speed of emergency medical care is especially important with medical emergencies such as stroke, a situation that benefits most from the earliest treatment. Read more

Spouse’s Smoking Brings Risk of Stroke to Nonsmoking Partner

Nobody likes secondhand smoke (SHS).  It’s annoying, nasty, and it can make nonsmokers sick.  Being around it a lot can increase a nonsmoker’s risk of coronary heart disease.  A newly released study provides evidence it can increase the risk of stroke, too, for a nonsmoker living in a smoke-filled environment. Read more

Strokes in Children Not the Same as in Adults

For the first time ever, the American Heart Association and the American Stroke Association have issued guidelines for dealing with strokes in infants and children, an event once thought so rare that such guidelines were not warranted.  New diagnostic tools and in-depth studies of the children who experience strokes, however, reveal the event is still uncommon but not so rare that similarities and specific characteristics cannot be documented.  And one very important factor in children’s strokes is that they are quite different from the strokes adults suffer; so different, in fact, that treatment and prevention measures are most effective when handled in an age-appropriate manner. Read more

Older Women’s Sleep Patterns Influence Risk of Stroke

When all other risk factors are relatively equal, postmenopausal women who sleep between seven and eight hours each night are less likely to experience an ischemic attack, or stroke, than women of the same age group who sleep less than seven hours.  And women of this age group who sleep nine hours or more each night are at an even greater risk of experiencing a stroke than women who sleep less, according to the report of a study that has just been published in Stroke: Journal of the American Heart Association. Read more

Have You Had a Stroke and Don’t Even Know It?

More than 10% of a large group of middle-aged study participants who appeared otherwise healthy said they’d never had a stroke, either, but brain scans revealed evidence of silent cerebral infarction (SCI), also called a silent stroke.  Even though they come and go without making us aware of their presence, these silent strokes are not to be taken lightly.  They are brain injuries and indicate an increased risk of future strokes, which can lead to cognitive impairment and dementia. Read more

Magnesium Rich Foods Cut Risk of Stroke in Male Smokers by 15%

According to a new study, male smokers can reduce their risk of cerebral infarction, or stroke, by 15% by increasing dietary intake of magnesium rich foods. The most significant effect was found in men younger than age 60. Magnesium intake has also been found to reduce blood pressure, leading researchers to speculate that dietary intake of foods rich in minerals such as magnesium may be associated with good blood pressure control, though the exact mechanism for stroke risk reduction is not entirely clear. Read more

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