6 Ways to Prevent a Stroke Your Doctor Won’t Tell You

There is a standard narrative that if your blood pressure is high, you will get a stroke. Your doctor says, “You need to take this medication so you don’t get a stroke!” Fear sets in, and you acquiesce. But, what they don’t tell you is that medications may slightly lower absolute risk for stroke, but they cause other problems.

A recent report from a long-term study done in Pomerania (SHIP) showed that lowering blood pressure with medications increases your risk of death.^[1] The authors state: “Individuals with medication at baseline always had a higher risk for all-cause mortality irrespective of measured blood pressure compared to the reference group…” No matter how you look at this large, prospective, recent study, your risk of death increases with medications.

It is also risky to lower blood pressure if you have a stroke. If blood pressure is lowered during a stroke, then blood flow to the brain slows down, and damage is worse. This treatment is dangerous, and the FDA has recommended that it not be used,[2] but in some places, it persists. The temptation to lower severe hypertension is just too great for many doctors.

A stroke is a lack of blood flow to an area of the brain. The blood flow to the brain is directly correlated with the blood pressure. What the doctors don’t know is that the blood pressure goes up because the brain is demanding more blood flow, so a stroke causes hypertension, not the other way around.

There are two different kinds of strokes,[3]

Hemorrhagic stroke is bleeding in the brain from a ruptured blood vessel. It can be caused by trauma, such as a fall or automobile accident, or by an aneurism, a weak spot in a blood vessel that ruptures. These account for about 13% of strokes.
Ischemic stroke is a lack of blood flow to an area because of clogging of an artery. This can happen when material from plaques in an artery breaks off, travels into the brain, and clogs an artery, or when the blood clots in an artery. This is by far the most common cause of strokes, about 87%.

Table of Contents

Transient Ischemic Attack

A temporary stroke is called a transient ischemic attack, or TIA. These are always ischemic, or blockage of arteries. It generally lasts for less than a day, and the symptoms resolve completely. The body will dissolve clots, or use collateral circulation to get blood to the area. The important thing to note about a TIA is that they aren’t benign. Just because they go away quickly and resolve completely doesn’t mean there is no damage. They also indicate a risk for a major stroke in the same area, so they should not be ignored. If you have any kind of TIA, you need to do all you can to lower your risk of stroke.

Stroke is very common

According to stroke.com:

Each year nearly 800,000 people experience a new or recurrent stroke.
A stroke happens every 40 seconds.
Stroke is the fifth leading cause of death in the U.S.
Every 4 minutes someone dies from stroke.
Stroke is the leading cause of adult disability in the U.S.
Up to 80 percent of strokes can be prevented.” [4]

This last one is what we want to discuss. How can 80% of strokes be prevented?

High blood pressure and stroke

Let’s first look at the standards of society. We have been told that stroke is caused by high blood pressure. Even today, most of the medical websites on stroke tell the same story, such as that found on WEBMD:

“Experts say 80% of strokes can be prevented. The single best way to do that is to get your blood pressure in the healthy range. That means lower than 120/80.” [5]

However, a thirty-year study of men showed that lowering blood pressure with medications didn’t lower stroke risk compared to those who had normal blood pressure. The authors concluded:

“In spite of a substantial reduction of their blood pressure, treated hypertensive middle-aged men had a highly increased risk of stroke… compared with non-hypertensive men of similar age.” [6]

In other words, medications to lower blood pressure are no t as good as naturally having normal blood pressure. Other studies have shown similar results.[7]

The take-home message is that while people with lower blood pressure have a lower risk for stroke, those who started with high blood pressure continue to have a much higher rate of strokes, even if their blood pressure is lowered with drugs.

Cholesterol and stroke

Perhaps you may think that lowering cholesterol will lower your risk of stroke. However, this may not be true. A study of 45,000 [8] people showed no correlation between cholesterol level and stroke. There is a slight increased risk of stroke with lower cholesterol. [9] So, using medications is not helpful. What can we do to lower the risk of stroke?

Cause vs. Association

The reason that changing the “risk factors” doesn’t change the risk is because they are not the cause of the problem. Hypertension and high cholesterol are associated with stroke, but don’t cause stroke.

Real Risks

What causes stroke is clots that happen in the arteries. The two primary sources of arterial disease that can lead to stroke are clots come from:

Inflammation
Metabolism

Inflammation

When we have inflammation anywhere in the body, it increases our clotting mechanism. This allows clots to form in blood vessels, which can travel to the brain and cause a stroke. Inflammation is increased with obesity, diabetes, infections, and autoimmune disease.

Metabolic causes

It is interesting that type 2 diabetes has a far greater association with stroke than blood pressure. Type 2 diabetes is one reason for hypertension. This illness is a metabolic problem, or a disease that affects the energy production. Type 2 diabetes happens from eating too much, especially sugar and carbohydrates. It can also happen from having too much stress hormones, such as cortisol. Stress hormones raise the blood pressure and increase cholesterol and sugar. This gives us some ideas as to what we can do to lower our risk of stroke.

Preventing stroke for good!

Now, lets get to that 80% — how can we lower our risk by that much?

Inflammation

The first thing is to lower inflammation. If you have any inflammatory condition, don’t just take aspirin or other drug to relieve the symptoms, rather, find the cause and treat it. If you have arthritis, don’t just mask the symptoms, find out why and remove the cause.

One of the best things to lower inflammation and prevent clotting is omega 3 oils. Studies indicate that just adding omega 3 lowers your risk of stroke more than lowering blood pressure.[10] It is important to avoid omega 6 vegetable oils, especially those that are in processed foods because they get oxidized. Then add omega 3. You can get a good quality omega 3 oil from Barton Nutrition here.

Also, make sure you have an anti-inflammatory diet with plenty of anti-oxidants in fruits, vegetables, and whole foods.

Atrial fibrillation

Those who have atrial fibrillation have an increased risk of stroke because clots can form in the heart and then go to the brain. The prevention of strokes requires preventing clots from forming in the heart. Now, there is a WATCHMAN, which is a filter to catch the clots in the aorta so they can’t get to the brain. Those with atrial fibrillation should make sure they have a good omega 6 to omega 3 ratio. They can also take vitamin E[11] (d-alpha tocopherol with mixed tocopherols – don’t use dl-alpha tocopherol) 1200 IU daily, and Nattokinase[12] 200mg twice daily.

Metabolism

The best way to lower blood pressure to prevent stroke is to improve metabolism. This means allowing your body to use both glucose and fat. As the populations of the world are becoming more obese, the stroke rates increase, however, like blood pressure, obesity is only a symptom. We store all the extra energy we don’t use as fat, but if we never use it, we just continue to store it. Excess fat in the body increases blood pressure and inflammation. The key here is to be able to use fat for energy. This also has the benefit of cleaning out the arteries.

There are several ways to do this:

Avoid sugar – processed sugars cause inflammation.
Avoid carbohydrates – to lower insulin.
Eat less — smaller meals empty out of the stomach faster.
Eat fewer meals (Intermittent fasting) give time for digestion to happen.
Ketogenic diet for 90 days every year to clean out the sugar.

A combination, or all, of the above is the most helpful. The key is to burn fat. When we stop eating, we start using the fat we have stored. This is the single best way to lower stroke risk.[13] In fact, we don’t even need to lose weight to get the benefits.[14] It’s not the amount of fat we have, rather it’s our ability to use it for energy that lowers our stroke risk. This is why there are many overweight people who don’t get strokes.

Fasting is the best way to burn fat. People who eat low calorie diets use a lot of protein (muscles) for energy – about 25% of the weight they lose is muscle. During a fast, insulin levels drop, allowing the body to use fat, instead of muscles, for energy.[15] Studies done on people with hypertension showed that fasting for two weeks, drinking only water, worked 100% of the time,[16] meaning their blood pressure became normal.

I don’t think a lot of people are going to check into a fasting clinic for 2 weeks, but there is another good option. It turns out that fasting for 3 days (72 hours) once per month can change the metabolism to fat-burning, and allow normal blood flow to the brain.

One person who tried it said:

“The key idea behind fasting isn’t deprivation, it’s giving your body a break from the constant work of digestion, so it can focus on deeper repair. When you step out of the cycle of constant eating, you trigger metabolic shifts that help lower inflammation, balance hormones, and even clear the skin from the inside out. It’s not about discipline, it’s about creating the space for your body to do what it’s designed to do.”[17] — Donna Bartoli

Blood pressure plummets without medications, inflammation drops, fat decreases, the body runs better, turning on all the repair mechanisms. This includes decreased clotting, lowering the risk of stroke.

Exercise

Studies show that heavy exercise decreases stroke risk by 25%. That’s better than blood pressure medication! Exercise improves blood flow and prevents clots from forming in the arteries. It increases nitric oxide and the function of the blood vessels. It decreases insulin to improve metabolism. The more you exercise the lower your risk of stroke.[18]

The best exercise is HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) where you push hard for 10 seconds, and then do light exercise for 30 seconds. It only takes about 15 minutes a day 5 days a week to improve your metabolism and decrease your risk of stroke.

Summary:

Balance omega oils by decreasing vegetable oils (omega 6) and take omega 3.
Take vitamin E
Avoid processed foods
Avoid sugar
Fast 72 hours once a month
Exercise regularly

Strokes are feared so much that people are willing to spend thousands of dollars and take medications for their entire lives just for a very small probability of preventing them. There is a better way. Keep your blood vessels clean and clots don’t form. This is why I believe that by following the principles outlined above, you can lower your risk of stroke not only 80%, but very near 100%.