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More than 600,000 Americans will have their first stroke this year. The American Stroke Association wants to arm doctors and patients with the knowledge to reduce this number.
The American Stroke Association, a division of the American Heart Association, has updated its guidelines for primary stroke prevention for the first time in a decade, with a new set of recommendations to help health care professionals and clinicians screen for stroke risk. Incorporated. Stroke and suggests steps patients can take to reduce their risk. The updated recommendations were published this week in the association’s journal, Stroke.
“People at highest risk for stroke are those who have multiple risk factors that are not well controlled,” said Cheryl, lead author of the recommendations and associate chair for research at Wake Forest University School of Medicine. Dr. Bushnell said. “Stroke is preventable, and without health care provider awareness of these risks, stroke can be fatal or seriously disabling.”
The new strategy aims to “support brain health” and reduce the risk of a first stroke, known as primary prevention.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a stroke occurs when something blocks the blood supply to part of the brain or when a blood vessel in the brain ruptures. Stroke can cause permanent brain damage, long-term disability, or death.
The 2024 guideline update adds new dietary ideas, recognizes social and economic factors, and highlights the potential risks women face when it comes to preventable stroke.
The guidelines encourage a series of healthy behaviors to help people avoid common risk factors for stroke, such as obesity, high blood pressure and elevated cholesterol levels. The guidelines’ new findings show that GLP-1 receptor agonists, such as the popular weight loss and diabetes drugs Ozempic, Wigovy, Munjaro, and Zepbound, may reduce the risk of stroke by helping Type 2 patients lose weight and control blood sugar. This shows that it can be reduced. Diabetes.
The guidelines also suggest a Mediterranean diet to improve heart health and maintain a healthy weight. Diets like the MIND diet have also been shown to reduce the risk of cognitive decline by eating leafy greens, olive oil, fish, and other whole foods.
“The risk for dementia is essentially the same as the risk for stroke,” Bushnell says. “All of our recommendations not only lead to improved stroke prevention, but also improved brain health.”
The new guidelines emphasize that neighborhood walkability, access to healthy food, and even general access to resources can influence stroke risk.
These “social determinants of health” are non-medical factors such as education, economic stability, access to health care, discrimination, and structural racism.
The guidelines now include a list of food and housing resources for patients, as well as more affordable medication options.
“There is abundant evidence that adverse social determinants of health can act as barriers to prevention and therefore increase stroke risk,” Bushnell said.
According to the CDC, the risk of primary stroke for non-Hispanic black adults is nearly twice as high as for white adults. Non-Hispanic black adults and Pacific Islanders, groups that tend to face more structural racism and have less access to health care, also have the highest death rates from stroke.
The guidelines also include sex-specific and gender-specific recommendations for women, saying women should be aware of elevated blood pressure if they are pregnant or on birth control, which can increase the risk of high blood pressure. .
“There’s been an explosion of new research on women’s health and stroke risk, and there’s been quite a lot of new data to guide these recommendations,” Bushnell said. “Even though these women are young, they are at risk of having strokes that are preventable, such as treating very high blood pressure in pregnant women about to give birth to prevent brain hemorrhage.”
The guidelines note that people who use hormones for gender-affirming care may be at increased risk of stroke. Ask your doctor about dosage changes and monitor your blood pressure.
The association also encourages people to be aware of the warning signs of stroke. The BEFAST mnemonic is an easy way to do that. If someone starts feeling dizzy. If your vision is blurred or you have numbness in your arms or face. Or, if your speech becomes slurred, call 911.
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“These are treatments that can be performed in the emergency room and can save the lives of people who have a stroke,” Bushnell said. “The sooner a stroke is recognized, the sooner treatment can begin.”
According to the CDC, stroke is the leading cause of death and serious long-term disability for Americans. Someone in the United States has a stroke every 40 seconds, and someone dies from a stroke approximately every three minutes. High blood pressure, high cholesterol, smoking, obesity, and diabetes are the leading causes of stroke, and one in three U.S. adults has at least one of these risk factors.
These new recommendations could save lives and lead to a healthier lifestyle.
“This guideline provides a relatively simple strategy that appears to be highly effective in lowering the risk of stroke,” Bushnell said.
