When it comes to blood type, we often don’t spend a lot of time thinking about how it impacts our daily lives. But blood type does have an impact, even if it is often a hidden one. Besides things like blood transfusions and surgery, blood type might play a big role when it comes to the likelihood of someone having a stroke, new research says.
A group of researchers from the University of Maryland School of Medicine was looking at risk factors for those that have an early stroke. For the purposes of this study, that meant a stroke occurring before the age of 60.
When it comes to an early stroke, people with blood type A were much more likely to be victims than those with blood type O. Type O is the most prevalent blood type throughout the world.
This doesn’t mean that those with other blood types will not have strokes. They are just less likely to suffer from an early one, for a variety of reasons. It is still important to live a healthy lifestyle and take precautionary measures where possible. The study also found that blood type didn’t matter as people aged past 60 and that there wasn’t a correlation between stroke and blood type.
If you don’t know what your blood type is, your primary care physician might already have this on file. While it won’t tell you exactly whether or not you’re going to have a stroke, this new information might be one piece of the puzzle in helping you to take better steps toward improving your health.
The team published their findings in the journal, Neurology.
Knowing your risk level is important because it means that you can be better about taking preventative steps to help improve your odds of a healthy life as you age. You can’t do anything about your blood type, but you can do other things to improve your health outcomes. Knowing that you are at a greater risk of stroke or heart disease early on can help you to make other lifestyle changes, such as eating healthier or getting more exercise, that can profoundly lower the risk that you will face. It’s not a promise that nothing will happen to you, but healthy changes can go a long way toward improving the quality of life that you face. Like everything else in life, it can help get the ball rolling, but it’s certainly not a guarantee.
We’re here to help out. Whether it’s helping you or a loved one to get connected to the right care service to meet your needs, or just answering a few questions, Paradise In-Home Care is on your side. We’d love to talk more about what we do and how it might help you to meet your family’s care goals. A strong senior care team can go a long way toward helping someone struggling with issues because of poor heart health, or a variety of other issues. So if you’d like to talk more, please don’t hesitate to reach out.
No one has to do senior care alone. We’d love to be a part of your team.
Leave a Reply