How To Prevent Stroke

Foods that contain excessive fats should be avoided. Fatty foods contribute to the production of cholesterol and excessive cholesterol can precipitate stroke...

His 30 year old wife who was pregnant for their third child told doctors he had never complained of hypertension since they were married five years ago. In fact, he had not visited the hospital for any ailment. He often told her he had never been hospitalised in his adult life. He only visited the hospital when she was admitted for the delivery of their children.

The comprehensive medical examination carried out as soon as he was brought to the hospital revealed that his blood pressure was over the roof. Painfully, the doctors concluded the sudden attack could have been avoided if he had taken the time to check his blood pressure. The doctors claimed his Blood Pressure, (BP), could have been controlled if he took the drugs that would have been prescribed for him. Affordability of the drugs, if they had been prescribed, was guaranteed because he was financially solvent.

At Ijebu Ode, a 62 year old wealthy businessman had a seizure as he attempted to relapse into the comfortable leather seat at the owner's corner of his Mercedes Benz, 500 SEL. He was rushed to a well-equipped private hospital that is regularly patronised by royalty, nobility and aristocrats.

Medical examination revealed he had suffered a mild stroke. On the eighth day, he was flown to a hospital in London. This prominent chief never shied away from visiting his chosen hospital at Ijebu Ode. He wasn't a confirmed hypertensive patient. For twelve years, his annual vacation had been spent at his posh flat, north of the city of London.

But he was utterly surprised when he was told that his condition was provoked by an over dose of a common spice which he cherished so much: SALT! Doctors Advice was simple: he must avoid eating raw salt if he wants to stay alive and most fearfully, avoid another stroke which might be dangerous.

Before his attack Chief relished the raw taste of salt in red oil with which he garnished his favourite diet of unripe plantain and yam, supported with fish pepper soup cooked with rich African spices. His mother who was a successful dry fish merchant reared him with his favourite unsurpassable delicacy in Ijebu Ode.

His mother, also a prominent Chief, an Iyaloja, (Leader of Traders), also cherished the raw taste of salt in red oil with which she ate her plantain and yam. She died at the age of 65 of stroke. His mother wasn't as lucky as himself; her stroke was massive and she died two weeks after the attack.

It was while he was recuperating in London that Chief recalled that his mother had died from stroke just like his maternal grandmother, from whom his mother picked up the proclivity for excessive raw salt intake.

A nurse who was born and reared in Calabar told one of the doctors at the Ijebu Ode hospital, where she worked, after a blood culture revealed excessive salt in Chief's system that her father also died of stroke due to excessive raw salt intake in Calabar in 1980.

Factory workers at a Flour Mill in Apapa, Lagos, are fond of patronising a Bukka or Mama Put, a roadside restaurant, during break time. As a marketing strategy, the lady who owns the eatery adds granulated sugar to her beans, stew, sauce, semovita, and yam porridge. To her customers, she is a wonderful cook whose delicacies are unparalleled.

She sells soft drinks, too. So, gulping a 35cl of a sweetened mineral drink after a meal is considered a regular routine. It is commonplace to see some of her customers, those with bulging midriffs and moon-shaped cheeks drowning the 50cl content with gusto.

She has been running the eatery for 12 years and many of her unlucky customers are now diabetic. She usually taunts some of her customers who have visibly added weight that her rich delicacies inspired their robust new looks.

None of her customers is involved in any practical exercise apart from their regular factory chores. So, layers of fats pile up daily after a visit to their favourite 'Mama Put'. Apart from inducing her clients with diabetes, three of her hefty customers were hit by heart attack, while two were struck by stroke within a year.

So, what, indeed, is stroke? Dr. Enoma Bazuaye, Consultant Physician, Humanist Hospital, Effurun Warri, Delta State, says "stroke is the sudden disturbance to the cerebral blood flow" He explains: "In order words, there is a sudden disturbance in the blood flow to the brain which disrupts its function. And this results in a sudden weakness of one side of the body, usually manifested in the weakness of the hand and the leg which can also affect the mouth, leading to slurred speech".

He emphasised that heart attack is different from stroke: "Stroke is the equivalent of what happens in the heart. In heart attack, there is usually a blockage of the blood vessel. A blood vessel that leads to an integral part of the heart is blocked, thereby, impairing the function of the heart".

As deadly as stroke and heart attack are, medical doctors say they can be prevented if the conditions that inspire their occurrence are detected early and addressed medically. So, what are the conditions that need to be monitored to prevent stroke and heart attack? Unlike the high-flying banker who mistook his fitness for an all-round internal state of healthiness, it is imperative to do a blood pressure test every three months to ascertain if one is hypertensive. A hypertensive situation can be effectively controlled with medically prescribed drugs.

Foods that contain excessive fats should be avoided. Fatty foods contribute to the production of cholesterol and excessive cholesterol can precipitate stroke. Sweetened drinks should also be avoided because apart from being the leading cause of diabetes, mineral drinks can also shore up cholesterol levels in the body system. Since diabetes is also a known cause of stroke, shunning sweetened drinks would also be helpful.

Excessive intake of raw salt is dangerous as typified by the chief who relished raw salt in red oil while taking his favourite meal of unripe plantain and yam with pepper soup.

Here, indeed, is a case of different strokes for different folks. A medical doctor who had been in practice for seven years had become visibly agitated about his father's undying predilection for raw salt; his 63 year old father born in the riverside village of Uduophori in Burutu Local Government in Delta State, is an accomplished farmer. He eats roasted yam and plantain daily. And the meal is incomplete without red oil and an overdose of raw salt. His father love to taste the sharp grit of the salt in his tongue. His son thought his father's love for salt would diminish if he could persuade him to stop smoking. He succeeded. The man abandoned his pipe and quit smoking but hung on to his penchant for raw salt.

The roasted yam and plantain menu is usually complemented with 'iribotor', otherwise known as native pepper soup. It is prepared by grinding fresh chilli pepper, irinrin, a tiny, hard, finger-long spice with equally small seeds together with ewore, which can be loosely described as a semblance of a giant groundnut after they have been roasted. Oil and a small quantity of potash and warm water are then added.

His two other favourite meals are bitter leaf and water leaf soup. As a rule, the bitter leaf is washed once. He cherished the bitter taste. He also prefers the water leaf hard so he can exert some little pressure while munching. Beside his bed is a 'root drink'. Its content are garlic, ginger, irhinrhin, ewore, amoke leaves, (the leaves open up their foliage in the morning and close them again in the evening), infused in native brewed gin, popularly called ogogoro. He takes two shots first thing in the morning and two shots before going to bed at night.

He later explained to his son, a medical doctor, who had become so disturbed about his father's excessive intake of raw salt that a farmer from Abeokuta, Ogun State, whom he met at a government sponsored workshop in Benin in 1987, in the old Bendel State, asked him to add garlic and ginger to his herbal solution as an antidote for high blood pressure.

Since a good turn deserves another, he then told his colleague and friend to add amoke leaves and irhinrhin to his 'root drink when he gets back to Abeokuta. Amoke, his father stressed, flushes impurities from the liver, kidney and the abdomen, while irhinrhin burns unwanted cholesterol from the body. His father, he recalled, had been curing people who had malaria, fever and typhoid with amoke while he was a child.

His Abeokuta friend also told him that chewing three leaves of bitter leaf in an empty stomach in the morning was also a powerful antidote against high blood pressure, stomach complications and dizziness. He said he complemented his friends counsel by telling him that his late father, also a farmer, taught him that bitter leaf juice with a pinch of salt was used to flush out excess sugar and fats from the body. He then recalled his late fathers refrain: "to stay trim and healthy, drink bitter leaf juice".

Then he fell ill. He complained of general body debility. The pains in his joints were excruciating. The diagnosis revealed his blood pressure was a notch high but manageable and not scary. He promised his son he would cut down on his excessive intake of raw salt upon his discharge from hospital. And he did!

Aside the dangers posed by excessive intake of raw salt, here is a word of caution for our Newage upwardly mobile corporate shakers; deep-pocket bankers and cutting edge financial whiz kids; white collar executives; socialites; celebrities; the crème de la crème; high flyers; authors and actors; image makers; artists and artistes; sport stars; spidery models on the cat walk and utterly pampered youngsters that their frequent sojourn to enchanting and ubiquitous millennium eateries is a dangerous habit.

Each time they pick their way into these eateries, in quest of refined carbohydrates, fatty foods, meat pies, hamburgers and cakes complemented by gallons of nonalcoholic beverages, they are unwittingly investing in a regrettable future of ill health: excessive cholesterol; obesity; diabetes; and most fearsomely, stroke or heart attack!

Dr. Irauyah Kelly of Irrua Specialist Teaching Hospital warns: "We must reduce our intake of salt and fatty foods. Fatty foods contribute to high cholesterol and excessive cholesterol contributes to stroke".

Dr. Joshua Maha, Medical Director, Royal Rapha Medical Centre, observes: "In the West, that is what they live on and they are paying the price. It is normal that anyone who chooses to live on fatty foods like the Americans, British and the Europeans, would pay the price. As they say, you are what you eat. Fatty foods are mainly junk food".

"To prevent stroke", Dr. Bazuaye points out "one needs to have a healthy life-style of which diet is one of them. It is important to eat right. It is advisable to take rough carbohydrate. Rough carbohydrates are energy giving foods, such as gari; yam; plantain; rice; amala; agidi; semovita, wheat, including drinking a lot of water and eating more fruits, vegetables and protein.

He counsels: "It is unhealthy to eat too much refine carbohydrates. Refined carbohydrates are sweetie foods such as cakes, flour, fruit juice, nonalcoholic beverages, among others. Excessive consumption of refined carbohydrate can make a person fat which could increase the blood level of cholesterol and this could lead to STROKE. People should eat healthy carbohydrate not diet rich in fatty acids",

If you are wise or fortunate to have been properly counseled to check your blood pressure regularly; if you eat only salt cooked in the course of preparing the meal; if you normally eat rough carbohydrates; if you shun fatty foods suffused with fatty acids that could have shot up your cholesterol; if you also don't eat late at night; if you drink alcohol with a restrained sense of sanity and sobriety; and if you don't smoke cigarette, which also could have fired up your blood pressure, yet, you are an INSOMNIA, which typifies a state of sleeplessness, or STRESS, what would you do?

According to Dr. Kelly, "insomnia or sleeplessness contributes to stress on the body which can affect a person's productivity. Insomnia can increase the blood pressure which can also lead to constant headache. So, the medical advice is for the patient to try to sleep very well and take his prescribed drugs regularly".

The need to try and sleep as much as possible is further underscored by Dr. Maha. He explains: "Insomnia or lack of adequate sleep is a symptom of high blood pressure. Lack of sleep usually worsens the health conditions of hypertensive patients".

So, if insomnia or sleeplessness contributes to stress, then, can stress be managed? Dr. Rotimi Coker, Consultant Psychiatrist and Clinical Psychologist, Lagos State University Teaching Hospital, (LASUTH), says one way to manage stress is for those who are going through a stressful period to play their favourite tune and dance to it.

"One important way to manage stress is to laugh away your stress. When facing a challenge or a problem just put up a smiling face and approach it with a positive emotion. When you smile, it indicates that you are happy, sane and alive", he advised.

He emphasised: "The psychology behind this trick is that you can not be happy and sad at the same time. Smiling alone can reduce stress, but we must cultivate the habit of laughing all the time because it can reduce physical pains, emotional pains and body tension".

If a harmless toothpaste smile complemented with a hilarious burst of laughter can prevent ones blood pressure from rising; and if eating right and living well can keep one healthy; and if checking ones blood pressure and religiously adhering to medically prescribed drugs can normalise a blood pressure that often threatens to fly off its tangent, then, it is feasible that stroke in all its fury can be forestalled.

"It is my conviction" Dr. Maha maintains that "stroke is preventable if we do all we possibly can; go for checks regularly; eat the right food with appropriate calories as well as cultivate a healthy lifestyle".