According to new Swedish data, women who live a healthy lifestyle have a 54% lower risk of stroke than women who do not.
The study considered the following five factors as part of healthy lifestyle: keeping to a heart-healthy diet, having between three and nine alcoholic drinks per week, never smoking cigarettes, keeping moderately active for at least 40 minutes per day, and maintain a BMI below 25.
The researchers in the study used participants from an existing study of 32,000 women over the age 50. These former participants had filled out a diet and activity questionnaire. They looked at the data 10 years later from the time that the women had filled out the questionnaire and saw that there had been 1,554 strokes and 1,155 cerebral infarctions.
The researchers analyzed risk factors of eating a healthy diet, never smoking, and reporting a health BMI individually and saw that the risk factors did indeed have an impact on decreasing the risk of having a stroke. The researchers also found that women who never smoked were 17% less likely to have a stroke. Women who were physically active were 9% less.
When comparing all the factors that the researchers defined as part of a health lifestyle, women had 62% lower risk of a cerebral infarction and 54% lower risk of a stroke.
That’s a significant number that could benefit all women living a healthy lifestyle. Living a healthy lifestyle doesn’t have to be the same criteria as defined by the researchers in this study. A healthy lifestyle can encompass you having a healthy diet, exercising daily for at least an hour, not smoking, and many other things. A healthy lifestyle will make more of a difference than just cutting your risk of stroke in half. It will provide you with a balanced life and reduce many other illness you can get from not living a health lifestyle.
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