As you grow older, your risk of suffering an accident cerebrovascular increases. However, there is a lot of evidence that the foods you eat can make a difference in whether or not you suffer a stroke. Those foods can also make a difference in whether or not the accident is fatal.
What causes a cerebral vascular accident?
Blood clots stuck in the blood vessels in the head and in the brain cause about 80 per cent of the cerebral vascular accidents among people in the United States. Blood vessels that burst in the brain cause the other 20 per cent because they can cause a haemorrhage.
We also know that by including certain foods in your diet, you can:
Prevent the formation of blood clots
Keep a healthy blood pressure
Keep blood vessels flexible and free of debris
By including even a serving a day of certain foods you can decrease between 40 to 60 per cent the probability of suffering a cerebrovascular accident or to die as a result of it.
The natural protectors of the brain
If you want to avoid strokes or any other type of accidents in the brain, you need to eat fruits and vegetables. Ten years ago, research showed that eating fruits and vegetables prevents cerebral vascular accidents and mitigates the damage in case an accident happens.
British researchers at Cambridge University found that older people who ate substantial amounts of fruits and vegetables had fewer probabilities to die of a stroke.
A Norwegian study also found that the probability of suffering a stroke was 45 per cent lower among men and 1/3 lower among women who ate substantial amounts of fruits and vegetables.
Scientific studies have very well established by now that much of the brain damage do to strokes is from an imbalance in our cells between sodium and potassium. This happens because we eat too many processed foods loaded with salt and few fruits and vegetables that are higher in potassium than in sodium (salt). If you are interested in knowing a little more about how your body cells work you can read my article “Do You Know What the Main Hypertension Causes Are?”.
What people who don’t die of a cerebral vascular accident eat
Each of these foods provides 400 additional milligrams of potassium to your diet, an amount that has been shown to reduce about 40 per cent the probabilities of a cerebral cardiovascular accident.
- ½ cup of fresh spinach, cooked
- ½ cup fresh beet leaves, cooked
- 1 cup of tomato juice
- 1 cup of fresh orange juice
- ¼ melon
- ½ cup pumpkin
- 10 halves dried apricots
- 2 carrots
- ½ cup cooked sweet potato
- ½ cup fresh green beans, cooked
- 1 cup of non-fat milk
- ½ avocado
- 1 banana
- 60 grams of almonds
- 1 baked potato without skin
- 1 baked potato with skin (844 mg)
Final words
Eating fruits and vegetables every day protects you from many diseases. Now you have one more reason to include them in your diet: to prevent damage to your brain. If you are like me, the thing that probably scares you the most as you grow older is not to be self-sufficient because your brain is not responding. While you cannot control everything around you to prevent a cerebrovascular accident, you can do a few things such as eating more fruits and vegetables.
