Identify it Before it Strikes You - How Correctly Diagnosing a Stroke is Essential to Recovery

The immediate and accurate diagnosis of a stroke is crucial to patient recovery. Strokes can be fatal, claiming some 250,000 people in the US alone. Over 700,000 cases are reported each year, which means more than one stroke per minute, and a mortality rate of over 30%. Clearly, a stroke is not something you should take lightly.

Identifying and acting on the warning signs of a stroke is a sure shot way to prevent it, or to help the patient recover from it. The most obvious warning signs of a stroke include sudden weakness or numbness, particularly on just one side of the body (usually the left side where the heart is located). Stroke patients usually feel dizzy or lose their sense of co-ordination becoming jerky in movement. Sudden headaches, debilitating nausea, difficulty in constructing coherent sentences or even sudden vision loss are other warning signs of an impending stroke.

The sure shot way to cut down on your stroke risks is to lead a healthy lifestyle. Even if you are genetically disposed to getting a stroke, making a few lifestyle changes can go a long way to minimizing your risks. This includes eating healthy, cutting down or giving up drinking or smoking, exercising regularly, cutting down on fat and cholesterol in your diet, and getting regular check-ups done.

There are certain factors that increase your chances of getting a stroke. These include your age (older people are more likely to suffer from a stroke), your gender (women are more likely victims than men), your racial and genetic background (African-Americans and Hispanics are more likely to get a stroke than others), etc. Your doctor should help you identify any of these risk factors and work with you to minimize them.

It is important to know all the symptoms, risk factors and conditions that can lead to a stroke. Strokes are one of the biggest killers in across the world today and by educating yourself, you can do a lot to prevent its occurrence.

How Do You Lower Triglycerides With Omega 3 Essential Fatty Acids?

The benefits of omega 3 essential fatty acids, primarily DHA (docosahexaenoic acid) and EPA (eicosapentaenoic acid), are well known, and in particular the heart benefits of omega 3 fats. However for people with high triglycerides there is another reason to increase the amount of omega 3 fats in a diet to lower triglycerides.

Research shows that over 90 percent of us are deficient in the important essential fatty acids found in fish oil. And research has also confirmed a wide range of heart benefits from remedying that deficiency by including more fish, or fish oil in the form of supplements, in our diet.

Some of the heart benefits of increasing your intake of omega 3 essential fatty acids include a reduction in the risk of arrhythmia, which can lead to fatal heart attack, a reduction in blood pressure and a decrease in the growth rate of plaque in the arteries. But for our purposes today the research also show a decrease in triglycerides levels.

Triglycerides are a form of fat that can be manufactured in the body from the food you eat and exist in the blood. Having high triglycerides increases the risk of blood clots and can also lead to a lowering of your HDL (good) cholesterol. Basically high triglycerides are linked to coronary artery disease. And high triglycerides can also be a risk factor in some other diseases, for example diabetes.

A diet high in fats and in particular in saturated fat can contribute to high triglyceride levels as can high sugar foods. Being overweight and drinking too much alcohol can also contribute.

So it would seem clear that lowering triglycerides, if you have a problem with a higher than normal triglyceride level, is a good thing.

There are a range of things that you can do to lower triglycerides if you have a problem, including reducing the amount of fatty foods and in particular foods was saturated fats, eating less sugar and exercising more. Also important is reducing alcohol intake and try to lose weight if you are overweight.

However research is now showing that increasing your intake of omega 3 essential fatty acids found in fish oil is also important in a strategy to lower triglycerides.

For example a statement published on the website of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition concludes that "omega-3 fatty acids from fish oil decreased serum triglyceride concentrations by 25% to 30%" and "A dose-response relationship exists between omega-3 fatty acid intake and triglyceride lowering".

The role of an increase in intake of omega3 essential fatty acids is sufficiently established so that the American Heart Association specifically recommends that patients who need to lower triglycerides take 2 to 4 grams of DHA and EPA every day, as fish oil supplements, under a physicians care.

Many people in our society suffer from higher than recommended triglyceride levels. This then is good news for them, providing them with another weapon in the arsenal to help lower triglycerides.

And there is also powerful evidence of a wide range of other health benefits from increasing your intake of omega 3 essential fatty acids, and for these reasons everyone, including people with high triglycerides, should seek to maintain a minimum level of fish oil in the diet.

This is difficult simply by eating fish because fish is contaminated with mercury and is expensive. However there are excellent fish oil supplements available which are not contaminated and which are much more cost-effective to be taken daily. But not all supplements are as good as others.

Visit my website to find out how to compare the various fish oil supplements available, (and which ones I take myself).

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