Healthy lifestyle reduces women’s stroke risk

By Abigail Mellier, June 20th, 2013 | Health | 0 Comments

A study reveals how factors like a healthy diet and regular exercise can decrease a woman’s risk of having a stroke.
The benefits of exercise and not smoking on stroke prevention are well known. But it is less obvious how a combination of behaviors might reduce risk of stroke. A team at Brigham and Women’s Hospital reports on the impact of a healthy lifestyle - not smoking, exercising regularly, healthy diet and moderate alcohol consumption.

They assessed a group of over 45,000 women and gave each a health index score ranging from zero to 20 depending on their lifestyle factors. They were followed up for around ten years during which time there were 450 strokes of which 356 were ischemic (caused by a blood clot). Those in the 17-20 index group - 4.7 per cent of the women - had a significantly lower risk of stroke overall and of ischemic stroke in particular. In other words, the healthy lifestyle really does pay dividends.