Lifestyle Factors Double Your Risk Of Stroke

A study of of 20,000 adults in the UK has demonstrated that having an unhealthy lifestyle doubles your risk of suffering a stroke.

The BBC news reported on the findings of the study, which was carried out at the University of East Anglia:

Smoking, drinking too much alcohol, not taking enough exercise and eating few vegetables and little fruit contribute to the chances of a stroke.

You might think that we knew this already - but previous studies have not so clearly highlighted the risk of these factors in otherwise healthy people.

The study, led by Dr Phyo K Myint and published in the British Medical Journal, looked at 20,000 people aged 40-79, and assessed them on four key lifestyle factors, giving them a points rating from one to four in total:

• One point for not smoking
• One point for eating five fruit & veg portions per day
• One point for drinking between one and fourteen units of alcohol per week
• One point for being physically active

The researchers found that people with four points were much less likely to have a stroke than the people with zero points. As the BBC news explains:

Some 259 people did not score any points, of whom 15 had a stroke - at a rate of 5.8%.

But the most common score was three - achieved by 7,822 individuals, of whom 186, or 2.4%, had a stroke.

Around 5,000 achieved the healthiest score of four, which was associated with an absolute stroke risk of 1.7%.

Given that only one quarter of the study sample achieved all four health points, there's clearly a long way to go in encouraging people to adopt healthier lifestyles. And recent news from the US also suggests a corrolation between lifestyle factors and stroke risk: people living in areas with a lot of fast food restaurants are more likely to suffer a stroke.

How do you score on the four lifestyle factors above? If you need to make changes, what could you do to hit all four points?

follow us on Twitter