A stroke is a medical emergency. It is caused by a sudden lack of blood reaching the brain, leaving tissue without oxygen or nutrients. Strokes come in two damaging types. The main one is called ischemic, accounting for 80% of all strokes. It’s caused because an artery leading to your brain is blocked. The other type is hemorrhagic, occurring when a blood vessel in the brain ruptures. For this, high blood pressure is a main culprit, leaving arteries susceptible. In all, strokes are considered the third leading cause of death behind fatal heart problems and cancer.
Excellent word comes in the form of a new study out of the American Heart Association. For people who fuse high levels of physical activity into their leisure time, their risk of getting a stroke plummets. How long are we talking here? Just 30 minutes. What kind of activities are we talking? Your garden-variety jog, swim, and gardening, for example. Researchers also say if you walk or bicycle to work up to 29 minutes a day, your risk of getting a serious blood clot is far lower.
Okay, to the specifics. As there’s always a study to back up these medical announcements, this one comes from Finland, involving nearly 48,000 people aged 25 to 64. Nobody had stroke, heart disease, or cancer in their history. All of them were asked specific questions about a whole bunch of lifestyle issues (smoking, exercise, alcohol, etc.) Over 20 years, there were 2,863 strokes. Now for the leisure-time activities. “Low” was defined as being basically inactive — reading and watching TV. “Moderate” meant walking, cycling, and light gardening more than four hours a week. Finally, “high” meant vigorous activity for more than three hours a week including running, swimming, and heavy gardening.
After adjusting for all relevant factors, researchers found that moderate activity netted people a 14% reduced risk of stroke, while high activity led to a 26% lower risk — both compared to the low activity group. Those numbers cover any type of stroke. Now they also looked at physical activity during the commute to work over those two decades. Researchers found that walking or cycling to work for 29 minutes lowered stroke risk by eight percent, and more than 30 minutes had an 11% lowered risk.
And there it is: yet more evidence that physical activity is one of the best things you can do for your body and your risk of health problems.
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