stroke tagged posts

More than 122 million Americans—about half of the U.S. population ages 20 and older—have high blood pressure, referred to medically as hypertension. Hypertension is a major cause of cardiovascular disease, and despite advances in treatment, even patients who take medications to control their blood pressure remain at high risk of death from diseases like heart attack, heart failure, and stroke.

The lack of new drugs to effectively control hypertension and associated cardiovascular problems has fueled a search for novel treatment strategies, and now, researchers at the Lewis Katz Scho...

New Cleveland Clinic research showed that erythritol, a popular artificial sweetener, is associated with an increased risk of heart attack and stroke. Findings were published today in Nature Medicine.

Researchers studied more than 4,000 people in the U.S. and Europe and found those with higher blood erythritol levels were at elevated risk of experiencing a major adverse cardiac event such as heart attack, stroke or death. They also examined the effects of adding erythritol to either whole blood or isolated platelets. Results revealed that erythritol made platelets easier to activate and form a clot. Pre-clinical studies confirmed ingestion of erythritol heightened clot formation.

“Sweeteners like erythritol, have rapidly increased in popularity in recent years but there needs to...

In the aftermath of a stroke or traumatic brain injury (TBI), a group of amino acids that typically support brain function contribute significantly to the brain destruction that can follow both these injuries, scientists report.

The new study provides for the first time the surprising evidence that four common nonexcitatory amino acids that usually make proteins which are essential to brain function, instead cause irreversible, destructive swelling of both the astrocytes that support neurons and the neurons themselves, says Dr. Sergei Kirov, neuroscientist in the Department of Neuroscience and Regenerative Medicine at the Medical College of Georgia.

“There are many ways to kill neurons...

Atrial fibrillation, the most common cardiac rhythm abnormality, has been linked to one-third of ischemic strokes, the most common type of stroke. But atrial fibrillation is underdiagnosed, partly because many patients are asymptomatic.

Artificial intelligence-enabled electrocardiography (ECG) was recently shown to identify the presence of brief episodes of atrial fibrillation, and the ability of an AI-enabled ECG algorithm to predict atrial fibrillation up to 10 years before clinical diagnosis has been confirmed in a population-based study conducted by Mayo Clinic researchers.

A new population-based study from Mayo Clinic now offers evidence that the algorithm can help identify patients at greater risk of cognitive decline...