Diabetes can DOUBLE your risk of stroke
Diabetes can DOUBLE your risk of stroke, so why aren’t patients told to cut their blood pressure?
Adrian Scott was driving on a dual carriageway at 70 miles per hour when he felt a sensation like an electric shock strike his left side.
‘I managed to pull over using my right hand and leg to control the car,’ recalls Adrian, 60, a broadcasting technology consultant from Alhampton, Somerset.
‘But by the time I came to a stop, I’d lost all feeling in my left side. I immediately realised I had the symptoms of a stroke and called 999 on my mobile.’
Adrian, who is married with two grown up children, was rushed to hospital, where a scan confirmed he had suffered a haemorrhagic stroke, caused by a blood vessel bleeding in his brain.
This type of stroke is particularly dangerous - a third of sufferers die within 30 days.
Adrian survived his stroke in June 2009, although he has been left with pins and needles and numbness on his entire left side, which cause stiffness and make him tire easily and slur his words.
What is Diabetes?
Most of the food we eat is turned into glucose, or sugar, for our bodies to use for energy.
The pancreas, an organ that lies near the stomach, makes a hormone called insulin to help glucose get into the cells of our bodies.
When you have diabetes, your body either doesn’t make enough insulin or can’t use its own insulin as well as it should.
This causes sugars to build up in the blood.
Diabetes can cause serious health complications including heart disease, blindness, kidney failure, and lower-extremity amputations.
Diabetes is predicted by a clear set of symptoms, but it still often goes undiagnosed.
The main three diabetes signs are:
Increased thirst
Increased need to urinate
Increased hunger
Diabetes is becoming increasingly more common throughout the world, due to increased obesity - which can lead to metabolic syndrome or pre-diabetes leading to higher incidences of type 2 diabetes.
However, he was alarmed when doctors explained what had probably triggered it - type 2 diabetes, a condition he was diagnosed with just a year before, in 2008.
The condition more than doubles the risk of stroke because it can increase blood pressure.
Unfortunately, while most diabetics are aware of the importance of controlling their blood sugar levels, many don’t appreciate the importance of keeping their blood pressure down, too.
Indeed, strokes among diabetics have reached record highs, according to new figures from the National Diabetes Audit - around 16,000 people with diabetes suffered a stroke in England in 2009/10, a 57 per cent rise since 2006/07.
Being overweight increases the stroke and heart attack risk in us all, but people with diabetes are at high risk even at normal weight because the condition is associated with high blood pressure. This is because in diabetes the cells that line the blood vessels and maintain normal blood pressure can become damaged.
In December 2011 researchers published findings that Type 2 diabetes can be controlled by exercising for short periods of time. The trick is you might have to exercise a little bit harder, but that’s still good news. It means you don’t have to hit the gym. Just get up and move, take a brisk walk, march in place or go for a short jog. Even a quick session of vigorous swimming or walking in the pool can help people with diabetes control their hemoglobin A1C (HbA1C) levels, lose weight and preserve healthy blood vessels.
The findings, published in the Journal of Applied Physiology, show high intensity, short workouts are a valuable addition that can help patients naturally control Type 2 diabetes.
The study authors wrote, “Given that the majority of individuals with and without type 2 diabetes do not accumulate sufficient exercise to achieve health benefits, and the most common cited barrier to regular exercise is a lack of time, our results suggest that low-volume high-intensity training may be a viable, time-efficient strategy to improve health in patients with type 2 diabetes.” The finding is particularly important for individuals newly diagnosed with the disease. Speak with your doctor for clearance before engaging in any exercise program.