American specialists have listed the seven rules to follow to reduce the risk of suffering from a stroke.

Each year, 150,000 people suffer a stroke. According to a new study, seven lifestyle habits should be adopted quickly to halve the risk of suffering from a stroke. According to this study, adopting these lifestyle habits could offset up to 43% the high genetic risk of having a stroke. This advice is given by researchers at the University of Texas at Houston (USA) and the findings have been reported in the Journal of the American Heart Association.

So what are these seven factors? Eat well, exercise regularly, don’t smoke, lose weight, maintain normal blood pressure, control cholesterol and lower blood sugar. Among these different factors, only four are modifiable elements. All of these habits reduce the risk of suffering from a stroke, regardless of the genes. According to the researchers, eating well and exercising regularly may even offset any genetic risk. The researchers also found that following these different rules led to almost six more years of stroke-free living.

Change lifestyle factors

In this study, scientists followed 11,500 adults for nearly 30 years. Specifically, the most rule-abiding group recorded the fewest cases of stroke (6%). Conversely, those who followed the rules the least had the highest number of strokes (57%). “Our study confirmed that modifying lifestyle risk factors, such as blood pressure control, can offset a genetic risk of stroke”, underlines the main author of this study, Professor Myriam Fornage, a geneticist at the University of Texas at Houston.

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