Information from Your Family Doctor
How to Prevent a StrokeWhat is a stroke?
A stroke happens when there is a problem with the blood supply to a part of the brain. The area of the brain that does not get enough blood becomes damaged.A stroke can happen when a blood clot blocks an artery in the brain. A stroke also can happen when the wall of an artery bursts.
Depending on which part of the brain has poor blood supply, a stroke can be mild to severe. Here are some problems strokes can cause:
• Problems with moving (including paralysis)• Problems with feeling• Loss of vision• Problems with thinking, understanding, or communicating (that is, problems with speaking, reading, or writing)• Changes in emotion or behavior
What increases my risk of having a stroke?Strokes can happen in anyone, but they tend to be more common in older men, black people, and Asian people. Although we cannot change our age, gender, or race, we can control the following risk factors for stroke:
• Tobacco use• High cholesterol levels• Inactive lifestyle• High blood pressure• Diabetes• Heavy alcohol use• Atrial fibrillation, which is an unsteady heart rhythm (say: ay-tree-all fib-rill-ay-shun)
What can I do to lower my risk of having a stroke?Here are some things everyone can do to lower their chances of having a stroke—these things will also lower your risk of having a heart attack:• Get your blood pressure checked regularly and get treatment if it is high. High blood pressure is a “silent” illness with no warning signs.
• If you smoke—stop! Ask your family doctor for ways to help you quit.• Eat low-fat foods, and have your cholesterol levels checked by your family doctor.• Exercise regularly—for at least 30 minutes on most days of the week.• Keep your weight under control. If you are overweight, lose weight.• If you have diabetes, control your blood sugar levels. Controlling your diabetes will help your heart, kidneys, eyes, and brain.
Can medicine help lower my risk of stroke?
Medicines can help prevent strokes in some people. If you need one of these medicines, your family doctor will prescribe it for you.
If you have high blood pressure, and diet, exercise, and weight loss do not control it, you may need to take medicine to lower your blood pressure. Lowering blood pressure in people who have hypertension is the most important way to prevent stroke.If your cholesterol level is high and exercise and diet do not lower it, you may need to take a cholesterol-lowering medicine.
If you have atrial fibrillation, you may need to take a blood thinner such as warfarin (brand name: Coumadin).
Aspirin can lower the risk of stroke in some people. However, aspirin is not for everyone. There are risks associated with taking aspirin every day.
Please visit: http://www.aafp.org/afp/2003/1215/p2389.html for more information about how to prevent stroke and health information.
PS: Please consult with your doctor for more information.
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As you may know, as soon as you put yourself on a diet, you only have one thought left: to eat. Sooner or later, it will overcome you...except if you hit first.
When was the last time you focused so much on a task that you forgot to eat? You did not really forget, but you were too much interested in what you were working on to stop doing it and go to the fridge. Years ago, when your body was slim and your head swollen with projects, did you ever think that to be a grown up would not mean to be responsible and free? 
Stop looking for somebody to sue: nobody shovelled food in your mouth. Stop whining about commercials that influence you: nobody tied you up in front of the telly. Stop opening your mouth and closing your mind.
You know, everybody know, that the higher the education, the lower the weight. If you point at a person you know who has a PhD and 30 extra pounds, you act exactly as those people who say that there is no correlation between smoking and lung cancer since their grand father died of old age after having smoked thousands of cigarettes. I don't write for you. Bye bye!
Now that we are between us, let's move on to the main point. How much does this portrait look like you: - You often feel incredibly bored, - You think that you are more worth than what you show, - If you were given a new start, you would lead your life differently, - You cannot help wishing something else than getting up to go to work each morning, - In fact, it looks sometimes so vain that you'd rather stay in bed.
Do you recognize yourself? If yes, the choice is limited: either you fall in a depression, or you feed your brains. Since in order to get out of a depression, you would have to feed your brains, jump directly to the second solution!
First, recognize your qualities and make them shine in others' eyes. Modesty? You are not asked to show haughtiness but to get a sense of pride from your abilities. Would the world be better if Mozart's father had shyly hidden his son's gift? Don't let anyone mislead you: those who advocate modesty have nothing to show. Most time, they do not want you to succeed because it would be the evidence of their own failure. They brandish their righteousness against you because it is, by far, easier to damage your chances than to improve themselves. So, be honest and recognize your qualities.
Some people might advise you to devote your life to a charity cause. It is another way to prevent you from going ahead of them. Do you think that it would have been a great idea if Pasteur had chosen, out of charity, to visit the poor instead of inventing "pasteurization"?
Then, choose the domain in which you will be able to scintillate. Again, do not be humble. The satisfaction of reaching a goal is proportional to the difficulty you encounter to reach it. If you aim to learn arranging flowers, sure, you will succeed, but you will feel as bored as today and your thirst for something to fulfill your life will remain as burning as it is right now. You need to be confronted with a task exciting enough to prevent you from dropping it to go out to eat, or to take time to order a pizza. If the excitement is not rewarding enough, you are going to turn towards "the fridge consolation". 
Your goal must also be rather difficult because you are going to need time to change your way of life; so, decide to master the violin, to write an anthology about Roman Poetry, to learn a foreign language or to obtain a degree in chemistry; anything requiring your intellectual faculties to fully work and that you will not be able to complete in a couple of weeks is an activity that deserves to be chosen. Of course, the better you like your goal, the greater your chance to reach it, but do not worry: usually, we are attracted by what we guess we are good at.
Not only "decide" to change, make your decision official: proudness will help you to go on the day you are tired or disheartened.
Multiply your chances to succeed by eliminating the childish desire for "telling them". If you suffer from not being estimated at your true value, make yourself known to your own eyes. The rest will come. Within three years you are going to gain higher education that will lead you to higher income while losing extra weight.
Sure, people will notice.
By: Gabrielle Guichard
About the author:Gabrielle Guichard, a French teacher who can be reached on http://GabrielleGuichard.comand listened to on http://FrenchPodcasting.com
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Information from Your Family Doctor
What increases my risk of having a stroke?
• If you smoke—stop! Ask your family doctor for ways to help you quit.
