Stroke Archive

Research we're watching

Smoking just one cigarette a day appears to raise the risk of heart disease and stroke by between 48% and 74%, according to a study in the Jan. 24, 2018, issue of The BMJ.

Researchers pooled data from 141 studies done in 21 countries and regions, together involving millions of people. They analyzed the risks associated with smoking one, five, or 20 cigarettes per day, taking into account age, sex, and other possible confounding factors. Just one cigarette per day accounted for half of the risk seen with smoking 20 cigarettes a day in men, and for one-third of the risk in women, they discovered.

The health risks of loneliness and isolation have been known for some time, but more recently research has shown the specific effects in the brain. Finding ways to make connections with other people is the best "medicine" to alleviate the mental and physical effects of loneliness.

Research we're watching

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Adding a little extra spice to your food may help you eat less salt, according to a study in the December 2017 issue of Hypertension. A salty diet may raise your risk of high blood pressure, leaving you more prone to heart attack and stroke.

For the study, Chinese researchers recruited 606 people and determined their preferences for salty and spicy foods, in part by asking how often they ate foods such as salted fried pork and pickled Chinese cabbage.

Research we're watching

Scientists are getting some bright ideas on how to protect people from brain damage related to stroke by looking at the brains of hibernating squirrels.

When squirrels hibernate, blood flow to their brain slows dramatically — similar to the reduced blood flow to a human brain that occurs with an ischemic stroke (one caused by a blocked blood vessel in the brain). But unlike the nearly 800,000 people who experience ischemic strokes each year, the hibernating squirrels don't suffer any harmful consequences from this reduction in blood flow to the brain. Scientists say this difference reflects cellular changes in the squirrel brains that protect them from damage. The scientists for the NIH-funded study, who published the results in the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology's FASEB Journal, say they have found a potential drug that might mimic this protective hibernation process and could, one day, protect human brains from stroke-related damage.

Identifying and treating a stroke as quickly as possible can save brain cells, function, and lives. Everyone should know the warning signs of a stroke and when to get help fast.

The warning signs of a stroke can begin anywhere from a few minutes to days before a stroke actually occurs. The National Stroke Association has devised the FAST checklist to help determine whether a person is having a stroke.

Closing a gap inside the heart may help prevent a rare type of stroke from recurring.

Image: Adapted from © rabbitteam/Thinkstock

Most strokes occur when a clot blocks blood flow to part of the brain. Often, doctors can tell what caused the clot to form. But about a quarter of the time — especially in people younger than 60 — there is no obvious reason. These types of strokes are known as cryptogenic (meaning "of hidden origin").

One possible cause underlying a cryptogenic stroke is an opening in the wall that separates the heart's right and left upper chambers (atria). Known as a patent foramen ovale, or PFO, this flaplike opening is quite common. About one-quarter of all adults have a PFO (see "What is a patent foramen ovale?").

It may help prevent a heart attack or stroke, but it comes with the risk of bleeding.

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Maybe you've heard about people who take a low-dose aspirin each day to ward off heart problems. Since aspirin is a medicine you've probably used now and then without a problem, and since it is available without a prescription, you might consider trying a daily low-dose aspirin yourself. Don't do it. Unlike deciding to take a multivitamin, taking a daily aspirin isn't something you should decide to do on your own.

Aspirin therapy is typically prescribed to people who have atherosclerosis of the arteries of the heart or brain, or risk factors for such disease. Just who should take a daily aspirin, how much aspirin, and what type of aspirin are hotly debated issues, with clinical trials under way in search of answers. "Until those results are in, you should talk to your doctor before starting aspirin," says Dr. Deepak Bhatt, a cardiologist and the editor in chief of the Harvard Heart Letter.

As a group, men have nudged down their stroke numbers over the past decade. Why haven't women seen the same improvement?

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Men are less likely to have strokes than they were 10 years ago, but the risk for women has stayed about the same, according to a study of stroke data from Ohio and Kentucky, published online on August 21 by Neurology.

The question is, why?

"This study raises important concerns about the lack of decline in stroke rates in women," says Dr. Kathryn M. Rexrode, associate professor of medicine and chief of the Division of Women's Health at Harvard Medical School. Study authors suggested it's likely that better treatments for high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and diabetes, and a reduction in the number of people smoking helped to reduce the risk for men for having the most common type of stroke — ischemic stroke, which is typically caused by a clot that blocks blood flow to the brain. But women, who in theory should benefit from the same interventions, didn't see any improvement in their stroke rates over the study period.

Research we're watching

A research letter published in the July 3 issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology says that shingles, a painful rash caused by the varicella-zoster virus (the same virus that causes chickenpox) may be linked to an increased risk of stroke and heart attack.

South Korean researchers used a national medical database to identify diagnoses of shingles, stroke, and heart attack and followed them from 2003 to 2013. They compared 23,213 individuals who had developed shingles during this period and compared their subsequent rates of heart attack and stroke to approximately 23,213 shingles-free individuals. They found that people who had shingles had a 35% higher risk of heart attack and a 59% higher risk of stroke.

Research we're watching

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New research suggests that eating plenty of nitrate-rich vegetables — such as lettuce, spinach, and beets — may lower your risk of dying of a stroke or heart attack.

During digestion, your body converts nitrates into nitric oxide. This compound relaxes and widens blood vessels, which helps lower blood pressure. But does that translate to a longer life? To find out, researchers studied the diets of 1,226 older women who had no signs of fatty plaque in their arteries (atherosclerosis) and tracked them for 15 years.