Know How Diabetes Increases the Risk for Stroke — Diabetes and stroke

Diabetes on the upper hand can lead to many cardiovascular diseases (CVD). Stroke is one of the most important CVD. For stroke, diabetes is one of the important causes. Diabetes and stroke are interlinked.

Causes of stroke:

A stroke occurs when the blood supply to the brain is suddenly stopped. Most strokes are due to the blood clot of a blood vessel in the brain or neck.

Why diabetes causes stroke:

After digestion, some of our food is turned into glucose, which provides energy to the body. Glucose travels all over the body to enter into the cells. The pancreas is assigned to produce insulin on the right amount to use glucose as energy and also store it for later.

But in the case of people with diabetes, the pancreas won’t make the right amount of insulin. So the glucose will not be able to convert into energy which ends up in increased deposits of glucose or fat in the blood. This unused glucose or fat will make deposits or blocks in the blood vessels which cause a sudden stop in the supply of oxygen to the brain which leads to stroke.

There are three important types of stroke

• hypoglycemia stroke
• Ischemic stroke
• Transient ischemic attack

An increase in diabetes and stroke risk increasing are highly connected. Transient ischemic attack is known as a mini-stroke. Diabetes and mini-stroke are more common.

People who are at high risk are:

1. People with an apple-shaped body.
2. People with obese weight
3. Smokers
4. Family history with the stroke
5. High blood pressure level
6. Carotid artery disease
7. Not getting enough physical activity
8. High alcohol consumption

Since diabetes can’t be cured stroke can be prevented by

1. Proper exercise
2. Stop smoking
3. Healthy diet
4. Limiting alcohol consumption
5. Proper tracking of diabetes
6. Taking high fiber foods
7. Intake of a large number of whole grains
8. Treat high blood pressure
9. Having proper medications as prescribed

In general, people with diabetes are 1.5 times more likely to have a stroke than normal people. So proper lifestyle and proper tracking of diabetes and hypertension are very important to avoid stroke.

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