Stroke Archive

Articles

How old is your heart?

To use the online heart age calculator, the only numbers you need are your height, weight, and blood pressure reading.

Most Americans are not as young at heart as they might like to believe. More than three in four adults have a "heart age" that's greater than their chronological age, according to federal health officials.

Research we're watching: Working overtime may raise stroke risk

If you're "leaning in" by putting in extra hours on the job, you may be gaining gender equality that you don't want—the same stroke risk as your male colleagues. A recent analysis indicates that women who work 55 hours or more per week have a 30% higher risk of having a stroke than those working standard hours, making them just as likely to have a stroke as their male counterparts.

Image: Thinkstock

The analysis, published online Aug. 20, 2015, by The Lancet, was conducted by European public health re-searchers. It involved data from over 600,000 women and men enrolled in long-term observational studies in Europe and the United States. It was the first such analysis of the relationship between working long hours and stroke. The researchers noted several factors that might have contributed to the elevated stroke risk, including the additional stress of balancing the extra work hours, inactivity, long periods of sitting, and ignoring stroke warning signs.

Longer work hours may boost stroke risk


Image: Thinkstock

Research we're watching

People who work long hours may face a higher risk of stroke, according to a study published online Aug. 20, 2015, by Lancet.

Researchers pooled data from 17 studies from the United States, Europe, and Australia that followed more than 528,000 workers for an average of just over seven years. None of the participants had cardiovascular disease when they signed up for the studies.

Secondhand smoke boosts stroke risk

Image: iStock

Being near a smoker forces you to breathe what that person exhales as well as what wafts from the burning end of the cigarette. This so-called secondhand smoke has been linked to a host of health problems, including lung cancer, heart attack, and stroke. Now, a large study further validates earlier research about the risk of stroke caused by secondhand smoke.

The study, published online June 16 by the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, included nearly 22,000 people ages 45 and older. Almost a quarter of the participants reported secondhand smoke exposure, which was defined as more than one hour per week in close contact with a smoker. After adjustment for other stroke risk factors, there was a 30 percent increase in the overall risk of stroke among people exposed to secondhand smoke.

Low-dose aspirin for people with heart disease

If you have heart disease, national guidelines recommend that you take a low-dose (81-mg) aspirin every day. It's an inexpensive and effective way to lower your risk of a heart attack or stroke. According to a report in the July 17 Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, about seven in 10 adults with heart disease follow this advice.

The study relied on telephone surveys done by the CDC about health behaviors. It included data from more than 17,900 adults from 20 states and the District of Columbia.

Traffic noise may raise stroke risk

A constant drone of low-level traffic noise may slightly raise your risk of cardiovascular disease, according to British researchers.

The study included data from the nearly 450,000 people admitted to London hospitals with cardiovascular disease over an eight-year period. Researchers estimated how much traffic noise these people were exposed to, day and night.

How to avoid a disabling stroke

Strokes hit women hard. Self-care is key to preventing a stroke and minimizing the damage if you have one.

This year an estimated 425,000 women will have a stroke, and 55,000 will die from one. Women are more likely than men to have strokes, and they are also more likely to be disabled or to die from them.

Stroke risk when you have atrial fibrillation

Now we have a better tool to calculate your chance of a brain attack if you've been diagnosed with afib.

Atrial fibrillation (afib) is among the most common heart rhythm irregularities. During a bout of afib, the usually rhythmic contractions of the heart muscle's upper chambers (the atria) are replaced by an ineffectual quiver that does not completely move blood out of the heart chamber. As a result, blood can stagnate and form clots. These clots can then travel to the brain and cause an ischemic stroke.

When the blood supply to the kidneys suffers

The renal arteries, which supply blood to the kidneys, can become narrowed or blocked—a condition known as renal artery stenosis.

Image: Thinkstock

Fatty plaque in the arteries that feed the kidneys poses a danger to the heart and brain.

Harvard study links depression to stroke

Here's another reason to get depression treated as soon as possible: a Harvard study found that people with persistent symptoms of severe depression were twice as likely to suffer a stroke compared with people who have mild symptoms. The study appeared May 13, 2015, in the Journal of the American Heart Association. Researchers looked at the health information of more than 16,000 men and women ages 50 and older. The participants were interviewed every two years during a 12-year period and asked about many health issues, including depression symptoms. Researchers found that people who reported high depression symptoms at two consecutive interviews were more than twice as likely to have a first stroke than people with low depression symptoms. The stroke risk remained high even after depression symptoms went away.

The study showed only an association, and didn't prove that depression causes strokes. So why the link? Researchers speculate that depression—which is associated with high blood pressure, increased inflammation, and physical inactivity—may have a cumulative effect that causes damage to the blood vessels over time. Bottom line: Seek treatment if a case of the blues lasts more than two weeks, because it could be a sign of depression.

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