Can High Cholesterol Levels Increase Your Risk Of Stroke?

The shortest answer to this question is “yes”. Having high cholesterol levels in your bloodstream can lead to cutting off the blood supply to many different organs in the body. While the heart is normally the organ people associate high cholesterol with, this high lipid issue can affect other organs in your body as well, and the brain is one of them.

What is a stroke?

Stokes occurs when your brain isn’t receiving enough blood, or when that supply is completely interrupted. Your brain normally receives the nutrients and oxygen it needs from your blood.

A stroke has very visible signs that vary in length from one person to another. They include:

• Numbness in the face, arms or legs, which develop suddenly and can sometimes occur on a single side of the body.
• Difficulty in speaking, as well as in understanding what others are saying.
• Difficulty in seeing with either one eye or both.
• Dizziness and headaches.
• Difficulty in walking or controlling arm movement.

High cholesterol

When there is too much cholesterol in the blood, it narrows and hardens the walls of the arteries. In time, cholesterol deposits turn into plaque, which can then lead to the formation of blood clots. Either way, high cholesterol causes the arteries to restrict blood passage, therefore cutting down the supply that the organs connected to those arteries would normally receive.

Types of stroke

Depending on what exactly is going on inside your arteries, you can experience one of many different types of strokes.

Ischemic Stroke

This is the most common type of stroke that people with high cholesterol levels experience, and it’s characterized by a blood flow reduction to the brain due to narrow or blocked arteries. Ischemic strokes can be:

• Embolic strokes, meaning that there is a blood clot somewhere in your arteries (usually the heart) that’s being transported closer to the brain, causing this organ’s arteries to have blood flow restrictions.
• Thrombotic strokes are formed closer to the brain and are caused by clots created by plaque (which is one of the major consequences of high cholesterol).

Transient Ischemic Attack

TIA for short, the transient ischemic attack is also known as a pre-stroke and has symptoms very similar to a stroke. It’s triggered when there is a temporary interruption in the blood supply that’s supposed to reach your brain, but it’s shorter in length compared to a stroke, normally lasting about five minutes.

A transient ischemic attack doesn’t usually cause any permanent damage, but if you’ve ever suffered one, you are at risk of a full-blown stroke. People who experience a TIA should know that there is a blood clot or a narrow artery in their body that could lead to more permanent damage in the future and should seek medical assistance immediately.

Hemorrhagic stroke

This type of stroke isn’t usually caused by high cholesterol, but rather by hypertension. There are two main types of hemorrhagic stroke:

• Intracerebral hemorrhage, which is caused by the bursting of one of the brain’s blood vessels, leading to brain cell damage. When this occurs, the brain cells located beyond the leak will no longer receive the blood supply they need.
• Subarachnoid hemorrhage is caused by a burst artery located on or near the brain’s surface, which spills in the area between the skull and the surface of the brain. People who experience this sort of stroke will feel intense headaches.

Consequences of a stroke

As mentioned above, one of the most prominent risk factors for a stroke is untreated high cholesterol. If you fail to control your dietary habits, you can end up having severe brain damage, which can be as problematic as:

• Paralysis. One common result of a stroke is losing the ability to control muscles, as well as paralysis. This damage can be permanent, or reversible with a long period of therapy. If permanent, you will have to rewire your brain and your lifestyle to be able to perform routine activities, such as walking or getting dressed.
• Memory loss. Since parts of your brain may be permanently affected by a stroke, it’s not uncommon for people to experience memory loss in both the long and short term.
• Behavioral changes. A stroke can affect a person’s physical health, but also the way they deal with emotions. It’s not uncommon for stroke sufferers to end up feeling depressed, become introverted, and lack the motivation to interact with others. On the other hand, some people become angrier, more aggressive, and more impulsive.
• Thinking problems. Depending on which part of the brain was affected by the stroke, some people end up having problems concentrating, thinking, or communicating; all problems which are closely tied to the aforementioned memory loss.

Prevention: What can you do to avoid a stroke?

Knowing what and how much to eat is the key step in making sure you will never have to suffer any brain damage caused by fatty deposits. Lifestyle changes that everyone keeps mentioning include giving up bad habits (such as alcohol and tobacco), exercising more, but also following any cholesterol-lowering medication treatments that your doctor may have prescribed.

Conclusion

Yes, high cholesterol levels can increase the risk of a stroke as much as they increase the odds of having a heart attack. Cholesterol deposits in the arteries cause a series of blood circulation-related problems that interrupt the blood supply to different body organs.