Defining Stroke and it's Risk Factors

http://www.ihealthtube.com Dr. Chandan Sen describes exactly what a stroke is and what some of the many risk factors are.

Interviewer: Dr. Sen, let's talk a little bit about a certain condition that affects a lot of people, and that is stroke. Can you talk about what some of the risk factors of that are, and basically what stroke is in general?

Prof. Chandan K Sen: So first of all, stroke of the brain refers to a blockade of a fine vessel that supplies the brain. The brain, as you know, is a very active organ. It's a vital organ . . .

Interviewer: Mm-hmm.

Prof. Chandan K Sen: . . . supplied by very fine blood vessels. And the finest of the blood vessels is an advantage, because the thinner walls . . .

Interviewer: Mm-hmm.

Prof. Chandan K Sen: . . . of the fine vessels allow for rapid and efficient transport, or transfer, of nutrients and gas. And that's how blood-borne material can be delivered to the brain in a very fast and efficient manner. The downside of it is that since they're so fine, they lend themselves to blockade. Especially if you have a sticky substance in your blood. This could be certain clots, or this could be . . . you know, you have plaque somewhere else in the body, and a little of the plaque got loose and was flying through your blood vessels. And everywhere else it was fine, but now that it reached the brain in the fine vessels, it got caught. Now a focal part of the brain, you know, gets a deficient supply of blood and, therefore, all blood-borne factors. And that's usually what is referred to as stroke.

Stroke actually comes in two forms, generally speaking. One is ischemic stroke, that's what I referred to right now, where you have a blockade. The other is hemorrhagic stroke, which is where a fine blood vessel actually ruptures and now you have bleeding in that area. That too, downstream of a blood vessel because now all the blood is being spilled out has, you know, ischemia or not enough perfusion. But over three-fourths of all strokes are ischemic, and less than a fourth of all strokes are hemorrhagic.

Interviewer: Okay. Talk about some of the risk factors. You mentioned something sticking in the blood, or sticky blood. What are some of those risk factors? We hear a list of them. Is genetics one of them, as well?

Prof. Chandan K Sen: Yeah. So, you know, the risk factors associated with stroke are well studied and there are, you know, quite a few. Generally speaking, you know, blood liver profile is a big deal. You know, if you have a lot of bad cholesterol, and your bad cholesterol/good cholesterol ratio is on the undesirable side, that's bad news. A lot of people that don't exercise will have lower levels of good cholesterol. Much depends also on your eating habits. And with respect to genetics, there are two general comments I can make. One is, your liver profile, in some ways, could also be determined by genetic background.

Interviewer: Mm.

Prof. Chandan K Sen: But then a more relevant factor is stroke. That actually accounts for much of the stroke in young . . . is the fact that some of us, compared to others, have finer blood vessels. You will see when you go to the nursing home or hospital, and they try to draw blood. Some of us are very easy . . .

Interviewer: Mm-hmm.

Prof. Chandan K Sen: . . . to draw blood from. While others, the nurse well-trained, can't even find the vessel. They're poking here, poking there.

Interviewer: Mm-hmm.

Prof. Chandan K Sen: It's just that some of us don't have wide and big blood vessels.

Interviewer: Sure.

Prof. Chandan K Sen: And those people, you know, if they have other risk factors associated with it, could lend themselves to having more strokes than others.

Interviewer: Hmm.