Don’t Drink Heavily To Prevent Stroke!

Indulge in binge drinking is bad because the risk of developing heart disease becomes higher. But heavy drinkers of alcohol might also have other problems such as high blood pressure.

 

According to researchers from the University of Lille Nord de France, people who drank heavily might be getting a brain hemorrhage at a relatively early age. Hemorrhage is a type of stroke where ruptured blood vessels leak blood into the brain. Their findings were published on September 11, 2012 in journal ‘Neurology’.

 

They followed 540 patients with an average age of 71 who had hemorrhage. Among the participants, 137 people (or 25 percent) were heavy drinkers, which was defined as having 3 or more drinks a day or about 1.6 ounces per day of pure alcohol. These participants also underwent CT brain scans and their medical records were reviewed.

 

It was found that the heavy drinkers got brain hemorrhage typically at the age of 60, compared to the age of 74 among patients who were not heavy drinkers. Heavy drinkers were not only younger when they got their stroke they were also relatively healthy and less likely to have any history of heart disease, stroke or mini-stroke symptoms, compared to those who were not heavy drinkers.

 

Furthermore, the findings also discovered that when the stroke occurred in a deep part of the brain, heavy drinkers younger than 60 were more likely to die within 2 years than those who did not drink heavily. Even after discounting for factors like smoking habits, the heavy drinkers were twice as likely to die as compared to one-third of those who did not drink heavily.

 

In the study, heavy drinkers were found to have lower levels of certain substances that allow blood to clot, though those levels were still within the normal range.

 

The findings, however, could not prove that heavy drinking alone caused strokes at an earlier age. There might be other factors involved. For instance, heavy drinkers in the study were often smokers: 42 percent of them smoked compared to 12 percent of the other patients.

 

Since heavy drinking has long been considered a risk factor for strokes, this indicates that there are surely some reasons to believe that heavy drinking can be a problem.

 

Of course, this does not mean that drinking is strictly prohibited. People can still drink but moderation is the key. Remember this, excessive alcohol consumption is bad for the body in a number of ways.