Tag: stroke

In case you hadn’t noticed, men have a pretty lackadaisical attitude toward their health—an attitude that contributes to the fact that roughly one in four men in the United states will die of heart disease, and a between 70 percent and 89 percent of all sudden cardiac events occur in men! And the situation is getting worse, with women outliving men by about five years.

Sounds pretty grim, doesn’t it? Well, it doesn’t have to be. The reality is that half of all premature deaths are preventable—but to accomplish that, men will have to make some pretty serious changes in the way they run their lives. Unfortunately, far too many men aren’t terribly interested in modifying their behavior.

Were you aware that chronic stress is linked to the six leading causes of health issues? Heart disease, cancer, stroke, lower respiratory disease, and accidents. Chronic stress can affect your brain, raise your blood pressure, and reduces your immunity and ability to heal.

At least 75% of doctor office visits are for stress-related complaints stemming from job stress. It’s a $1 trillion per year "under the radar" health epidemic, according to Peter Schnall, author of Unhealthy Work.

A person’s current marital status and past marital losses may be related to their survival odds after a stroke, a new study suggests.

U.S. researchers followed stroke survivors for an average of five years after the event and found those who were never married, remarried, divorced or widowed had significantly higher risks of dying compared to those who had a long-term stable marriage.

Losing two or more marriages to death or divorce raised the odds of mortality after stroke still higher, though never-marrieds had the highest risk of all.

Spouses of stroke survivors may themselves face lasting mental and physical health issues, according to a new study.

"These caregiver spouses are at an increased risk of mental and physical health issues even seven years after their care recipient’s stroke," said lead author Josefine Persson, a Ph.D. candidate at Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg, Sweden.

"The spouses of stroke survivors reported lower general health than the spouses of (a comparison group), which might be due to perceived stress or strain for a long period, or due to shared lifestyle factors," Persson told Reuters Health by e-mail.