February Health! Stroke! Exercise!

Exercising regularly. Aerobic or "cardio" exercise reduces your risk of stroke in many ways. Exercise can lower your blood pressure, increase your level of high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, and improve the overall health of your blood vessels and heart. It also helps you lose weight, control diabetes and reduce stress. Gradually work up to 30 minutes of activity — such as walking, jogging, swimming or bicycling — on most, if not all, days of the week.
http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/stroke/manage/ptc-20117267

Exercise is one of the best ways to keep yourself healthy. The benefits of exercise for lowering your heart attack risk, reducing stress, and helping to prevent obesity and diabetes are widely known.
Well, now you can add another big one to your list of benefits from breaking a sweat: reduced risk of stroke.
The American Heart Association reports 800,000 Americans suffer from stroke each year. Stroke is the leading cause of disability in the US and the fourth leading cause of death. Up to 80 percent of strokes are preventable, because for the most part, strokes are the result of unhealthy lifestyle choices.
Recent research published in the journal Stroke¹ found that, if you're inactive, you have a 20 percent higher risk for having a stroke or mini-stroke (transient ischemic attack) than people who exercise enough to break a sweat at least four times a week.
The study involved more than 27,000 Americans for an average of 5.7 years, male and female, Caucasian and African-American. It included a larger proportion of people from the "Stroke Belt" states, where stroke rates are higher (Virginia, Tennessee, the Carolinas, Mississippi, Louisiana, Georgia, Florida, Arkansas, and Alabama).
The connection between vigorous exercise and stroke risk was very clear in men, but interestingly, less clear in women. Lead researcher Dr. Michelle McDonnell speculates that women may benefit more from less vigorous exercise, such as walking, which this study did not examine.²

 Your risk of stroke increases with age, with most occurring after age 55. However, younger people are increasingly at risk, according to the latest statistics.

The rate of strokes among younger people (under age 55) nearly doubled between 1993 and 2005.³ The primary driving forces behind this are increasing rates of obesity, diabetes and high blood pressure—which can all increase your risk for suffering a devastating stroke.
Stress is also a significant risk factor for stroke, just as it is for heart attack. According to a 2008 study in Neurology,⁴ the more stressed you are, the greater your stroke risk—especially a fatal one. Heart attacks and stroke have many other risk factors in common, including:

• Obesity, high blood sugars and chronically elevated insulin levels
• High triglycerides, high LDL, low HDL, and elevated homocysteine levels
• Smoking and excess alcohol consumption
• High blood pressure
• Inadequate or ineffective exercise

 http://fitness.mercola.com/sites/fitness/archive/2013/10/04/stroke-prevention-vigorous-exercise.aspx