At the present stage, stroke has become the third cause of death among Chinese residents, after malignant tumours and heart diseases. According to this estimation, at present, there are about 2 million new cases of stroke patients in China each year, and the number of people who die of stroke each year is 1.5 million to 2 million. Especially since the beginning of winter this year, most areas in the north of China have been affected by the cold wave weather, and the temperature has fallen off a cliff, inducing a high meteorological risk of stroke, and people with cardiovascular and cerebral vascular diseases should be extra careful and take precautions before it is too late.
Recently, the reporter on the hot topic of cerebral stroke asked the first national famous Chinese medicine practitioners, the national old Chinese medicine experts academic experience succession tutor, the second hospital affiliated with the Heilongjiang University of Traditional Chinese Medicine doctoral supervisor Sun Shentian Professor of popular science interpretation.
What causes stroke emergencies?
Stroke, scientifically known as cerebral stroke, is an acute cerebrovascular event. Professor Sun Shentian explains that stroke is a group of diseases that cause damage to brain tissue due to a sudden rupture of a blood vessel in the brain, or a blockage of a blood vessel that prevents blood from flowing to the brain, and is classified as either an ischaemic stroke or a haemorrhagic stroke. Both ischemic and haemorrhagic strokes cause varying degrees of brain tissue damage, resulting in a wide range of neuropsychiatric symptoms, and in severe cases, even life-threatening. In many cases, even after recovery, there are still after-effects that affect normal work, study and life.
As the “number one” enemy that endangers public health, people must be highly alert and pay attention to curb the attack of stroke from the source. Professor Sun Shentian concluded that, from the perspective of traditional Chinese medicine, the cause of stroke is due to the deficiency of positive qi, dietary disorders, emotional and emotional excesses, fatigue and internal injuries caused by the four major syndromes, and then triggered by the reversal of qi and blood disorder, prompting the wind, fire, phlegm, blood stasis hooked up with the chain, the rise of the wind, resulting in cerebral vein paralysis blockage or blood overflow of cerebral veins outside the brain, and ultimately evolved into a cerebral stroke, the main clinical manifestations of a sudden fainting, do not wake up the person, crooked eyes and mouth, speech is unfavourable The main clinical manifestations of stroke are sudden fainting, unconsciousness, distorted eyes and mouth, unfavourable speech, paraplegia, weakness or inflexibility of limbs, unsteady walking, severe headache, nausea and vomiting, and impaired consciousness.
Who’s at risk?
Clinically, what kind of people are more likely to suffer from stroke? Professor Sun introduced, first of all, from the gender point of view, China’s residents of the morbidity and mortality rate of stroke disease, in both rural and urban areas for men than women; men and women stroke patients population average age of onset of 65.5 years and 67.6 years, respectively. Sun Shentian explained that the reason for this difference may be closely related to the fact that men are more likely to smoke, abuse alcohol, and eat too much fat, sweet and thick flavours and other bad lifestyle. In the 80-and-over age group, women’s strokes outnumbered those of men.
At the same time, the current younger stroke patients also showed a “rising tide” trend. According to a survey in Heilongjiang Province, the incidence of stroke among people within 40 years of age is five to six times higher than in southern provinces and two to three times higher than in other northern provinces. This is nowadays young people mostly have the same environment and habits, such as fast pace of life, mental stress, intense competition at work, often stay up late, long-term use of computers or mobile phones, often eat takeaways or high-calorie fast food, smoking and alcohol addiction, general obesity and lack of exercise, etc..
Professor Sun also introduced that, according to the geographical distribution survey of cerebrovascular diseases in China, except for Tibet Autonomous Region, the incidence pattern of cerebral stroke in most of the provinces shows a trend of high in the north and low in the south, high in the east and low in the west. At the same time, experts and scholars in the study on climate change and neurological diseases found that the prevalence of stroke greatly increases under the impact of low temperature; at the same time, the dramatic changes in environmental temperature and the mortality rate of stroke are closely related, the mortality rate of stroke in areas with suitable temperature is the lowest, while the mortality rate in the cold zone is significantly elevated. At the same time, the onset of stroke is also seasonal and time-period-specific, i.e., it is much higher in winter than in summer, with a peak in the early morning to midday.
Clinical care is time-sensitive
Clinically, within 6 hours (preferably within 4.5 hours) of the onset of a stroke, it is known as the golden hour of rescue. Within this window of time, patients must undergo surgery or thrombolytic therapy in a timely manner to avoid disability or even death. From Professor Sun’s experience, early intervention with acupuncture in the early stages of stroke is highly effective, especially for the rehabilitation of limb movement, speech, swallowing and other functions. This is because acupuncture stimulation immediately after ischemia can significantly increase the local cerebral blood flow and promote ischemic tissues to enhance the effective blood supply locally to counteract the brain damage caused by insufficient blood supply; at the same time, acupuncture during the reperfusion period after ischemia can help to improve the blood supply and oxygenation of brain tissues, significantly reduce the area of cerebral infarction, and protect the neurological function from being further damaged.
It should be emphasised that for stroke, prevention is far more important than cure. Professor Sun Shentian said that the risk factors of stroke are divided into two categories: interventable and non-interventable, the former includes age, gender, race, heredity, etc., which are innate and cannot be changed; while the latter includes high blood pressure, heart disease, diabetes mellitus, dyslipidaemia, and smoking, alcoholism, obesity, atherosclerosis, emotional stress, etc., which are fully expected to be solved through human intervention. Take high blood pressure as an example, as the most cruel invisible killer of cerebral haemorrhage and cerebral infarction, the higher the blood pressure, the greater the rate of suffering a stroke. Only by putting a “cage” on the soaring blood pressure can we prevent strokes from occurring. The results of a clinical randomised controlled trial of systolic hypertension in elderly hypertensive patients in China showed that after four years of follow-up, the mortality rate in the antihypertensive treatment group was 58% lower than that in the placebo control group.
Five cornerstones to build on
Here, Professor Sun advised readers to pay attention to building the “five cornerstones” of health, namely, reasonable diet, moderate exercise, smoking and alcohol cessation, psychological balance, and treatment of chronic diseases. Specifically, first of all, we should regularly monitor blood pressure, limit salt intake, reduce dietary fat content; daily salt intake should be less than 6 grams, if too much sodium and fat, cholesterol, atherosclerosis is very easy to bury the risk of atherosclerosis; secondly, hypertension patients should be long-term adherence to take antihypertensive medication, to regulate the blood pressure under 140∕90 mmHg.
Third, regular and moderate physical exercise is essential. According to Professor Sun Shentian, aerobic exercise can enhance heart function, increase cerebral blood flow, improve microcirculation, and maintain an ideal body weight, so as not to give stroke a chance to take advantage of. Fourthly, quit smoking and limit alcohol, and eliminate the bad habit of swallowing clouds and alcohol. Professor Sun explained that smoking is a definite independent risk factor for ischaemic stroke and subarachnoid haemorrhage. Studies have shown that there is a J-shaped relationship between the amount of alcohol consumed and the risk of ischaemic stroke, with less drinking lowering the probability of stroke, while binge drinking can lead to an uninvited stroke.
Finally, Professor Sun Shentian also warned that it is important to maintain a happy and relaxed mood, actively adapt to the objective environment, and take active measures to adjust the bad mood; at the same time, avoiding fatigue, focusing on strengthening the physical fitness, balancing the mind, and nourishing the positive qi, in order to improve the ability to resist disease and stress. For those who have already suffered a stroke and its sequelae, it is important not to be in a hurry, but to focus on preventing the recurrence of stroke, so as to avoid the recurrence of stroke-causing factors by not pursuing them after they have passed away.