Health News

HEALTH NEWS

“Live healthy...Live well”

Dedicated to providing pertinent information on health, fitness, and nutrition to foster a culture of wellness among Southwest Airlines flight crews and their families.

by Larry Kline

email: livehealthy-livewell@cox.net

STROKE 101 – every 40 seconds someone in the United States suffers a stroke which mean that almost 800,000 Americans a year experience strokes, and this number does not count invisible “silent” strokes.  Every four minutes, someone dies of a stroke which means that more than 137,000 Americans are killed by stroke each year.  Stroke is the fourth-leading cause of death in this country.

A typical stroke is essentially a heart attack in your brain.  Nine out of 10 strokes are ischemic, meaning they occur when arteries in or on the way to the brain get blocked by a blood clot.  This is usually triggered by ruptured plaque in blood vessels in the brain or neck or near the heart, or a clot in the heart, that travels to the brain.

The clot can block the blood vessel or it can break into little pieces that go all over the body, including the brain.  If the clot cuts off the blood supply to the brain, oxygen-starved brain cells near the blocked vessel die.  Two million brain cells die every minute during a stroke, causing brain damage, disability, or death.

Six months after having an ischemic stroke, a fifth of survivors aged 65 or older have trouble speaking, a third cannot walk without assistance, and a quarter are in a nursing home.

Hemorrhagic strokes, which occur when a blood vessel in or around the brain bursts, accounting for 13 percent of strokes in the United States, but 30 percent of stroke deaths.

One drug has revolutionized the treatment of ischemic strokes.  In 1996, the Food and Drug Administration approved the use of tissue-plasminogen activator (tPA) to break up clots and restore the brain’s blood supply.  The catch is that you do not have much time.

The FDA’s approval is for three hours, but the national guidelines allow its use to 4 ½ hours in selected patients.  The sooner you get treated, the more likely that the drug is going to be a benefit.  That does not mean you have three hours to arrive at the hospital.  The current national goal is one hour from arrival to treatment but that if often difficult to do.  Patients arriving in emergency rooms must have a CT scan and blood tests and other potential reasons for the symptoms have to be excluded, and the patient has to agree to take the drug.  Getting to the hospital quickly so that stroke victims may be treated with intravenous tPA is the most important factor to minimizing the stroke effects.  If you are too late, there are no treatment options available.

Even if the warning signs disappear, call 911.  The symptoms may have been from a TIA or transient ischemic attack.  A TIA is one of the greatest predictors of having a true stroke – one that can cause permanent damage.  A TIA victim may not need anti-clotting medication, but treatment is still needed, often with drugs to lower blood pressure or prevent clots.  A TIA is an opportunity to prevent a damaging-stroke.

SIGNS OF A STROKE

1. Sudden weakness or numbness on one side of the face, arm, or leg.
2. Sudden trouble speaking or understanding, confusion
3. Sudden trouble seeing in one or both eyes
4. Sudden trouble walking, dizziness, loss of balance or coordination
5. Sudden headache of no known cause

SILENT STROKES

In a silent stroke, people can speak normally and have normal power and feeling in their limbs. Silent stroke victims do not get the warning signs of stroke so they often do not go to the hospital.  Silent strokes can still cause brain cells to die.  Silent strokes are probably precursors of dementia.  People become cognitively impaired as the burden of silent strokes increases.

There is a big overlap between vascular dementia and Alzheimer’s disease with most patients showing signs of both.

PREVENTION

People who follow a healthy lifestyle have a dramatically lower risk of stroke.  A study that tracked 44,000 men and 71,000 women for 16 years identified five aspects of lifestyle that reduced stroke risk: not smoking, not overweight, not drinking alcohol in excess, exercising regularly, and eating a healthy diet have about an 80 percent lower risk of a first stroke.  (A healthy diet means higher intakes of vegetables, fruits, nuts, soy, grain fiber, chicken, and fish and lower intakes of red meat, saturated fat, and trans fat).

The single most important risk factor for a stroke is high blood pressure.  Nutrition Action Healthletter, 11/12.

FAT AND YOUR AGING-BRAIN – a diet high in saturated fat may impair cognitive function and memory, while one rich in monounsaturated fat seems to improve them, according to a study of about 6,000 older women, reported in the Journal of Neurology.  Saturated fat comes largely from animal foods, such as meat and butter, while monounsaturated fat is found in olive and canola oil, nuts, and seeds.  This confirms other observational studies, suggesting that a heart-healthy diet is also good for the brain.  Some previous research has linked polyunsaturated fat (other oils are the main sources) with brain health as well.  University of California Berkeley Wellness Letter, 09/12.

IS YOUR COMPUTER KEEPING YOU AWAKE? – exposure to light through the eyes helps regulate the body’s sleep/wake cycle by affecting the pineal gland’s secretion of melatonin.  This hormone is produced at night and promotes drowsiness, exposure to light, notably blue light, suppresses it.  This is one way sunlight contributes to alertness, and why lack of light at night helps increase sleepiness.

            The potential problem is that LED screens produce enough blue light that, when the devices are used close to bedtime, they can greatly reduce melatonin, increase alertness, and thus delay the onset of sleep and reduce deep sleep. Blue light is emitted from the LED-backlit screens now on most computers, including tablets (such as the iPad and Kindle Fire) and smartphones, as well as many flatscreen TV’s.  The less sunlight you get during the day, the more sensitive you become to the melatonin-suppressing effects of light at night. Bright LED screens have the biggest effect on melatonin production, alertness and/or sleep onset and quality.

            Research on blue light and its effect on sleep is in its infancy and more needs to be done to determine which LED screen variables affect sleep most-brightness and size of the screen, distance from the screen, and when and how long the device is used and the individual’s sensitivity to blue light can all affect the blue light/melatonin relationship.

            If you are having sleep problems and use a device with an LED screen before bedtime, try using it earlier, or at least dim it as much as possible.  Try to reserve the hours before bedtime for calming, low-key activities such as reading a paper book.  Low-dose melatonin at bedtime may also help, but only for occasional use.  University of California Berkeley Wellness Letter, 09/12.

Exercise and Cancer Recovery - Studies have shown the powerful effect exercise can have on cancer care and recovery. For patients who have gone through breast or colon cancer treatment, regular exercise has been found to reduce recurrence by up to 50 percent.Mayo Clinic, 09/12.