by Harold Mandel for The Examiner:

Strokes can be a serious illness which can often be prevented. The National Stroke Association writes that up to 80% of strokes are preventable.

A stroke, or brain attack, is said to occur when a blood clot blocks an artery or a blood vessel breaks, interrupting blood flow to an area of the brain. Brain cells begin to die when either of these things happen. Abilities of speech, movement and memory which are controlled by that area of the brain are lost when brain cells die.

Cole Petrochko has reported for MedPage Today in an article on October 10, 2012: “Study: More Strokes in Middle-Age.” It has been suggested by data from a regional stroke registry that stroke may be shifting from a disease of the elderly to a midlife health concern.

by Leslie Wade for CNN:

Eating tomatoes in your daily salad or regularly enjoying a healthy red sauce on your spaghetti could help reduce your risk of stroke, according to research published this week in the journal Neurology.

Tomatoes contain a powerful antioxidant that is good for brain health, the researchers say, and cooked tomatoes seem to offer more protection than raw.

“This study adds to the evidence that a diet high in fruits and vegetables is associated with a lower risk of stroke,” says study author Jouni Karppi, of the University of Eastern Finland in Kuopio. ”A diet containing tomatoes… a few times a week would be good for our health. However, daily intake of tomatoes may give better protection.”

by Chris Kaiser for MedPage Today:

Women who go through menopause at age 46 or younger may have an increased risk for heart attacks and strokes, researchers report.

Kaplan-Meier curves for coronary artery disease- (CAD) and stroke-free survival were significantly lower for women with early menopause (log rank P=0.008 and P=0.015, respectively), reported Melissa Wellons, MD, MHS, of the University of Alabama at Birmingham, and colleagues.

When researchers adjusted for age, race/ethnicity, and geography, they found that early menopause was an independent predictor of both CAD (HR 2.11, 95% CI 1.19 to 3.75, P=0.010) and stroke (HR 2.10, 95% CI 1.08 to 4.07, P=0.028), according to the study published online in the journalMenopause.

After adjusting for traditional risk factors, the relative risk was reduced but it remained significant — roughly 85% higher for CAD and a doubling of risk for stroke.

by Huffington Post:

Depression, anxiety and problems sleeping are linked with an increased risk of dying from stroke, a new study suggests.

Researchers from University College London found that people who had these conditions of psychological distress were more likely to die from a stroke or ischemic heart disease.

The study, published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, included 68,652 people who had an average age of 54.9. Nearly all the study participants were white, and slightly fewer than half were male. None of them had any sort of cardiovascular disease at the beginning of the study.

by Dr. Hanna Tepper for STL Today:

We have all heard about trans fats. They make many of the guilty pleasure foods we eat taste so good. The not-so-good part of trans fats are the dangers that may manifest later in life, including stroke.

According to the American Heart Association, about 795,000 people experience a stroke every year, and 137,000 people die from them. Women account for almost 60 percent of those stroke-related deaths.

A new study in the Annals of Neurology found that for post-menopausal women, the danger of having a stroke may have something to do with their choice of foods. After studying more than 87,000 women ages 50 to 79 for eight years and adjusting for other risks such as weight and tobacco use, researchers found those women with a high intake of trans fats — from foods such as meat, dairy products, snack foods, frozen dinners and margarine — had a 66 percent higher risk for ischemic stroke compared to those who didn’t consume high amounts of trans fats. Ischemic strokes occur when an artery to the brain becomes blocked, which can cause the cells in the brain to die.

by Your News Now

A stroke is an attack on the brain. It occurs when the blood supply to part of the brain is interrupted or severely reduced, depriving brain tissue of oxygen and food. Within minutes, brain cells begin to die.

In the United States alone, stroke is the third leading cause of death, killing about 137,000 people each year. Approximately 795,000 people will suffer from some form of stroke this year. Strokes can happen to anyone at any time, regardless of race, sex or age and it is the leading cause of serious, long-term adult disability.

There are two major types of strokes: ischemic stroke and hemorrhagic stroke. Ischemic stroke occurs when arteries are blocked by blood clots or by the gradual build-up of plaque and other fatty deposits. Hemorrhagic stroke occurs when a blood vessel in the brain breaks leaking blood into the brain.

Approximately 55,000 more women than men have a stroke each year. Men’s stroke incidence rates are greater than women’s at younger ages, but not older ages; and African Americans are twice as likely of having a stroke compared to whites. About 87 percent of all strokes are ischemic. Hemorrhagic strokes account for 13 percent of all strokes, yet are responsible for more than thirty percent of all stroke deaths.

Detection: Use the F.A.S.T. to detect signs of a stroke:

by Isla Whitcroft for The Daily Mail

Changing your lifestyle can greatly reduce your risk of vascular dementia, this includes losing weight, reducing alcohol intake and stopping smoking. Vascular dementia is the second most common cause of dementia after Alzheimer’s disease.

For a man who used his mental arithmetic skills as a tool of his trade for years, it was a perplexing moment. Tom Mitchell and his wife Liz, from Bootle, Merseyside, were at the checkout in their local supermarket and, as she’d done hundreds of times before, Liz handed Tom the money to pay for the groceries.

‘Tom looked at the money then at me,’ recalls Liz. ‘Then he shook his head and I could see the confusion in his eyes. “What do I do with this?” he asked me. “What are these things for?” ’

This was more than out of character for Tom: until his retirement four years earlier, he’d made his living as a scrap metal merchant. ‘His ability to calculate weights and prices in his head was amazing,’ says Liz. ‘Yet there he was by the checkout, seemingly unable to even work out what the coins in his hand were for.’

Back at home, a concerned Liz tried to discuss the matter with her husband. ‘The strangest thing of all was that he didn’t seem at all bothered by what had just happened,’ she explains. ‘He just seemed to be quietly confused.’

by Alexandra Sifferlin for Time

A new study offers good news for women who unwind with a cocktail at the end of the day: light to moderate drinking is associated with lower stroke risk.

The new report by researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital involved 26 years of data on 83,578 women who were part of the long-running Nurses’ Health Study — a federally funded study of how such factors as diet, alcohol consumption and other lifestyle factors may influence women’s long-term health.

Over the follow-up period, there were 2,171 reported stroke events: 1,206 were ischemic strokes, which occur when a blood vessel supplying blood to the brain is blocked by a clot, and 363 were hemorrhagic strokes, when a blood vessel in the brain weakens and bursts. The rest were of an unknown type.

On average, about 35% of women reported very low levels of alcohol consumption — less than 4.9 grams, or less than half a glass of wine, a day. About 37% drank moderately — 5 to 14.9 grams daily, or a half to one and a half glasses of wine, one serving of a mixed drink, or one beer. Approximately 11% reported drinking more than the equivalent of one mixed drink per day and 30% reported abstaining from alcohol completely.

The researchers found that women who consumed low to moderate amounts of alcohol had a lower risk of stroke than women who never drank. Why would drinking lower stroke risk? “Alcohol has components that prevent blood clots and promote HDL (good) cholesterol,” says lead researcher Dr. Monik Jimenez. Fewer blood clots could account for fewer strokes. (And the boost in good cholesterol helps explain why moderate drinking may also lower the risk of heart disease.)

by Health CMI

Researchers conclude that acupuncture is beneficial for the treatment of vascular dementia.

Vascular dementia is caused by brain damage due to impaired blood flow to the brain. This is common after a stroke or a series of mini-strokes. Any condition that damages blood vessels that feed oxygen and nutrients to the brain may cause vascular dementia.

The study compared scalp acupuncture with standard body acupuncture. In this multi-center randomized controlled clinical trial, 184 subjects with vascular dementia due to Liver and Kidney deficiency received either scalp acupuncture or body acupuncture.

by Dr Ananya Mandal, MD for News Medical

A new study finds that older women who take in substantial amount of trans fats are more likely than their counterparts to suffer an ischemic stroke.

However, the risk of stroke associated with trans fat intake was lower among women taking aspirin, according to the findings from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill researchers. The report, “Trans Fat Intake, Aspirin and Ischemic Stroke Among Postmenopausal Women,” was published today online in the journal Annals of Neurology.

Researchers from the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health studied women who were enrolled in the Women’s Health Initiative Observational Study. From 1994 to 2005, 1,049 new cases of ischemic stroke were documented.