Last year, my husband, who is a rehabilitation medicine specialist, told
me that his youngest stroke patient was a 28-year-old man.
If
that sounds depressing to you, imagine my shock when my husband came
home this week and told me that his new stroke patient is a 9-year-old
girl!
No longer confined to persons in their 50s and 60s, stroke in the young now seems to be a universal trend.
The
Wayne State Stroke Program in Michigan conducted a survey in their
facility which revealed the increasing trend of stroke in the young from
354 cases in 2001 to 1,237 in 2009.
What is stroke?
Stroke is the loss of brain function when the blood supply to this area is blocked.
This
can be due to a blood clot that gets trapped in a blood vessel that has
already become narrow due to fat and cholesterol sticking to the walls
of the arteries.
Stroke can also happen when a blood vessel in
the brain becomes weak and it ruptures. High blood pressure or
hypertension is the number one risk factor for stroke.
(Actually the age of patients are getting younger and younger is caused by the table salt we been taking for these past 40 years. If we replace the table salt by using bamboo salt we will see a dramatic changes in everybody health!)
