Natural Remedies for Stroke Prevention

Anyone have a chance to develop a health problem what we call stroke. But the good news, it also can be prevented. There are plenty of natural remedies for stroke prevention that can help reduce your risk as low as possible. Natural remedies can be the use of some herbal supplements. But most experts agree, lifestyle changes are the best idea you should prioritize on your plan. Healthy lifestyles can provide a firmed foundation for your overall health in long term.

We know well that high blood pressure is the leading risk factor of stroke. Chronic high blood pressure can harm the blood flow from the heart to cells of the body, including for cells of the brain.

Normally, the blood pressure should be lower than 120 /80 mm Hg – 120 mm Hg for systolic pressure (the blood pressure when your heart beats), and 80 mm Hg for diastolic pressure (the forces of the blood against your blood vessel walls when your heart at rest /between beats).

Even some experts recommend keeping blood pressure lower than 115 /75 mm Hg for best result in preventing heart diseases and stroke.

Fortunately, hypertension (high blood pressure) is preventable condition. In many cases, it can be managed with some lifestyle approaches.

And the good news, many lifestyles changes used to treat hypertension is also helpful to improve both blood cholesterol and blood sugar. In other words, many ways to prevent hypertension is also useful to prevent high blood cholesterol and high blood sugar.

If you have hypertension, see this section for a complete guide about home remedies to help lower blood pressure!

LDL stands for low density lipoprotein which is commonly considered as bad cholesterol. LDL higher than normal is linked with lots of health problems, including stroke.

As mentioned before, controlling LDL and blood pressure can be done together, because many natural remedies that can help control blood pressure also can help control your bad cholesterol. For instance, diet for hypertension (DASH diet) can work together with TLC diet (a kind of diet used to help lower cholesterol), see here for in-depth information about this issue.

After blood pressure and blood cholesterol, blood sugar is another thing you need to concern especially if you have diabetes. In fact, uncontrolled blood sugar in diabetic people can play a key role in causing stroke.

Chronic blood sugar also can be a risk factor of hypertension and other health problems. So if you have diabetes, make sure to control blood sugar as well!

And if you don’t have diabetes but have many risk factors of diabetes, practice healthy habits and good eating habits as much as you can to prevent it.

Obesity is a risk factor of hypertension, high cholesterol, and diabetes. Furthermore, some studies showed that stroke is also more common in obese people than other with normal weight.

This suggests that obesity can have a direct link to increase the risk of developing stroke. If you are overweight, losing more pounds of your excessive weight can be significantly helpful to reduce your risk of stroke! If you have healthy weight, keep it!

The benefits of exercise for your overall health are countless. It is essential for your weight control, helpful to improve your insulin sensitivity (great to reduce your risk of diabetes), very useful to improve you blood pressure and the health of your arteries, awesome to help control your LDL, and many more!

But exercise is not about ‘set and forget’. You need to make it to be a part of your lifestyle.

In other words, you need to do the exercise regularly. For instance, do workout at a moderate intensity most days of week or at least 4-5 days a week.

Alcohol can be bad and maybe good for your risk of stroke and cardiovascular diseases – though most experts still in doubt about the health benefit of alcohol for your heart and cardiovascular system.

But it’s clear that excessive consumption of alcohol can hurt your blood vessels. Therefore to keep safe, make sure to drink alcohol in moderation if you drink.

According to the American Heart Association, men should not drink alcohol more than 2 drinks a day, and not more than 1 drink a day for women.

It’s undeniable that foods that you eat can be directly linked with the kind of health problem that you may experience in the future.

When it comes to reduce your risk of stroke, foods that can help improve your blood pressure and keep your LDL low are recommended. These include fresh fruits, vegetables, foods high in fiber, foods low /free in saturated fat, foods low in salt, etc.

For best result, full your diet with a wide variety of different healthy foods because each food can have unique essential property for your body.

Cigarette smoking can increase the risk of stroke – even it also can have an effect for the secondhand smoke. It can accelerate the clot formation that can cause narrowing and hardening artery.

If you are a smoker, quitting smoking can significantly help reduce your risk, particularly if also followed with regular exercise and well-balanced diet.

Sleep apnea is a kind of sleep disorder that can be serious in affecting the oxygen supply into your lungs during sleep. As a result, it can decrease the amounts of oxygen in the blood and eventually can affect the oxygen supply for cells of your brain.

Sleep apnea can be chronic and if left untreated can be a risk factor of stroke. OSA or obstructive sleep apnea is the most common type of sleep apnea that is also often associated with the increased risk of stroke.

If you have sleep apnea, drinking alcohol is not recommended. Furthermore, your doctor will ask you to lose your weight (if you are overweight), sleeping on your side rather than on your back, quit smoking (if you are a smoker), and do the exercise regularly.

In many cases, people with sleep apnea is recommended to use a special device to make sure that they get a continuously oxygen supply into their lung during sleep.

When it comes to preventing stroke, again – lifestyle approaches are the best option of your natural remedies.

But if you are looking for certain herbs /supplements, there are some choices. These may include ginkgo biloba, vinpocetine, low-dose aspirin, and fish oil supplement.