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Overeating, Salt Are the Real Culprits in Stroke Risk
Tuesday, December 27, 2011
By: Fran Lowry
Fran Lowry, Medscape Medical News
The overall quality of a person’s diet and the balance
between caloric intake and caloric expenditure appear to be more important
determinants of stroke risk than the actual foods and nutrients consumed,
according to a new review published in the January 2012 special issue of the Lancet Neurology.
In general, the two biggest threats to health and risk of
stroke are overeating and excess salt, author Graeme J. Hankey, from Royal
Perth Hospital, Perth, Western Australia, writes.
“These behaviors are a normal response by people to an
abnormal environment,” Dr. Hankey notes. “Our living environments have become
more conducive to consumption of energy and less conducive to expenditure of
energy in developed and increasingly in developing regions.”
He writes that between 1970 and 2008, the incidence of
stroke in high-income countries fell by 42 percent, probably as a result of
increased public awareness about the dangers of high blood pressure, high
cholesterol and cigarette smoking.
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