Contents:
- Medical Video: Smoking Causes Cancer, Heart Disease, Emphysema
- What is the relationship between drugs, alcohol and stroke?
Medical Video: Smoking Causes Cancer, Heart Disease, Emphysema
Believe it or not, some of your habits can be a trigger for stroke. Generally doctors refer to habits that increase the risk of stroke as "environmental factors that trigger stroke." Namely:
- Family planning pills: If you usually take birth control pills, you increase your risk of stroke. Birth control pills increase the risk of hemorrhagic strokes, especially in women who smoke.
- Smoke: You probably already know, but more than a habit, smoking can be called a bad habit. In fact, smoking is one of the most powerful risk factors for stroke, because it will increase the risk of stroke due to high blood pressure, diabetes, and high cholesterol. In addition, smoking combined with birth control pills increases the risk of hemorrhagic strokes in women.
- Alcohol consumption: Although several studies show that light consumption of alcoholic beverages can reduce the risk of ischemic stroke, heavy alcohol consumption has been shown to repeatedly increase the risk of hemorrhagic strokes. Alcohol can also cause atrial fibrillation through a phenomenon called heart syndrome.
What is the relationship between drugs, alcohol and stroke?
Years of research have shown that drugs are a significant risk factor for stroke. Some drugs can cause strokes directly by affecting blood vessels in the brain while other drugs do it indirectly by affecting other organs in the body such as the heart or liver. Common substances known to increase the risk of stroke include:
Alcohol: Even though moderate amounts of alcohol can protect you from strokes, excessive intake can increase your risk. In particular, excessive alcohol intake can trigger hemorrhagic strokes. This in many cases is a bad influence of alcohol on the liver, because this organ makes the protein needed to prevent spontaneous bleeding. However, most of the risk of stroke with excessive alcohol intake seems to be caused by a combination of high blood pressure, and a disruption of the blood clotting mechanism.
Cocaine: There is a clear connection between cocaine use and stroke. Important reasons why cocaine use increases the risk of stroke include:
- Increases blood pressure and causes bleeding in the brain
- Causes constriction of blood vessels in the brain
- When used in the form of an infusion it can increase the risk of heart valve infection, or endocarditis, a condition that can lead to embolic stroke.
Heroin: Similar to intravenous cocaine, infusion of heroin also increases the risk of endocarditis, a condition in which bacteria enter the blood and grow in the heart valves. This small amount of bacteria, known as septic emboli, can move from the heart, to the brain and cause strokes. Because the use of heroin is injected, its use also increases the risk of infectious diseases by sharing needles, such as HIV and hepatitis C.
Amphetamine: There have been many reports of amphetamine use several hours before suffering a severe stroke. Amphetamines have a strong ability to cause high blood pressure. High blood pressure is the number one risk factor for stroke, it is not surprising that amphetamine use can increase a person's risk of stroke.
Other substances, which have been linked to hypertensive stroke, include:
- Phencyclidine (PCP): This drug is also known as angel dust
- Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD)
