According to the World Stroke Organisation, up to 90% of strokes could be prevented by addressing a small number of risk factors.
If you manage the factors that damage your arteries or together with your doctor you manage the other risk factors that could cause blood clots, you can to a large extend prevent stroke from happening.
Body weight
Being overweight often means having too much sugar and/or cholesterol in your blood.
Every time you eat something high in refined sugar for example, the amount of sugar in your bloodstream spikes. This causes a receptor to be activated that transfers the sugar from your blood to your cells where it can be used as energy. If this happens too often due to an unhealthy lifestyle and eating habits, this receptor starts malfunctioning, resulting in less sugar being transported into the cells and more sugar hanging around in your blood.
It’s a bit like someone playing with a light switch. If they switch it on and off, on and off continuously for an extended period of time, the switch may stop working. In your body, the malfunctioning of this switch is called Type 2 Diabetes. This is not good as the excess sugar in your blood eventually starts damaging the arteries and other organs, which could lead to sick arteries and eventually heart disease and stroke.
