Preface
The high incidence of cerebral infarction stroke is nothing new.
But do you know that Chinese account for 40% of the world's new cerebral infarctions?
The number of deaths due to cerebral infarction in mainland China is as high as 1.2 million every year, which is nearly twice the number of deaths from lung cancer.
Moreover, the most fatal thing about this disease is sudden, and the fatality is extremely high, and often the person is gone before he can be sent to the hospital.
So how to prevent cerebral infarction?
Panacea folic acid
Fortunately, the latest research has discovered a "panacea" for cerebral infarction - folic acid.
With just a moderate amount of folic acid for a long time, you can regulate the concentration of homocysteine in the blood, thereby repairing the damaged inner wall of blood vessels and unblocking blocked blood routes.
It can not only reduce the risk of stroke, but also have a certain preventive effect on other cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases such as myocardial infarction.
What exactly is the "risk reduction" method?
It turns out that 75% of hypertensive patients in the world are accompanied by elevated homocysteine levels, which is called "H-type hypertension" by the medical community.
A 25% reduction in homocysteine concentration reduces the risk of stroke by 19%.
Folic acid acts as a "caretaker" in the body, regulating homocysteine metabolism and ensuring that it is maintained at safe levels.
As long as the supply of folic acid is abundant, homocysteine will not accumulate excessively in the body and become a "toxic substance".
Moreover, the U.S. government recognized this unique effect of folic acid and decisively fortified it during grain processing, so that the daily intake of the whole people was guaranteed.
Judging from the incidence of stroke alone, the United States is now much lower than us, so it is no wonder that folic acid is listed as an essential nutritional supplement by the World Health Organization.
So, should we also learn from the United States and follow the example of adding folic acid to food processing?
Compared with buying folic acid tablets yourself, this can obviously bring twice the benefit with half the effort.
However, dietary supplementation has many limitations, and the precise amount of supplemental tablets may be a more powerful remedy.
Folic Acid Cracks "H"
Walking on the streets, do you often encounter such a scene: the elderly group with long heads, rickety waists, pale faces, and staggering walking, like walking corpses, is really distressing.
What is the reason for this?
On an ordinary day 10 years ago, there were a large number of elderly patients in the Department of Neurology of a tertiary hospital.
An 80-year-old lady was helped by her family to walk into the consultation room, with a series of symptoms such as pale complexion, blue tongue, numbness of limbs, and memory loss, which confused the attending doctor, Dr. Tang.
After repeated questioning and detailed physical examinations, Dr. Tong found that the old man had a long diet and was malnourished, and had been drinking heavily for many years and never exercising.
When his blood was thoroughly examined, levels of homocysteine (Hcy) were found to be high.
Too high homocysteine?
This is an important cause of "H-type hypertension", which will directly damage vascular endothelial cells and cause a series of cardiovascular and cerebrovascular complications.
For a moment, Dr. Tong suddenly had the feeling that he was stumped by this mystery: what went wrong that caused the old man's homocysteine content to rise so high?
Through careful investigation, Dr. Tang finally discovered the key to this mystery: the old lady's long-term lack of folic acid intake!
It turns out that folic acid is an important coenzyme needed to help homocysteine metabolism, and if there is a long-term lack of folic acid, homocysteine cannot be metabolized and excreted from the body normally, so it continues to accumulate and rise in the blood.
In order to thoroughly confirm the relationship between folic acid and homocysteine, Dr. Tong specially prescribed folic acid supplements for the old lady.
Sure enough, half a month later, the elderly's homocysteine level dropped significantly, and the general condition also improved significantly.
This undoubtedly proves a powerful clinical case for the efficacy of folic acid in "lowering Hcy".
This case caught Dr. Tong's attention, and he subsequently wrote a paper focusing on the importance of folic acid supplementation in lowering homocysteine.
In fact, as early as 2010, the United States has listed folic acid as a "longevity element".
At that time, some researchers followed up the health status of nearly 70,000 middle-aged and elderly people for 30 years, and found that long-term daily consumption of about 400 micrograms of folic acid can reduce the risk of cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases such as stroke and myocardial infarction by about 20%.
It turns out that folic acid can not only prevent neural tube defects, but also improve blood circulation and reduce blood viscosity. It can not only make the blood vessels less "clogged", but also make our minds less "clogged", which will naturally prolong life.
Be cautious about folic acid supplementation
Although folic acid is good, it cannot be supplemented casually.
After learning that folic acid has so many benefits, a wave of folic acid fever has been set off in China, and countless patients with "H-type hypertension" have begun to take a large number of folic acid tablets in order to improve their condition.
For a time, the demand for folic acid supplements skyrocketed, and many merchants began to sell folic acid tablets in order to make huge profits.
What's more, in order to save money, some manufacturers directly doped a large number of toxic and harmful substances on the production line, resulting in serious consequences such as physical discomfort and even poisoning for users.
In the face of such serious quality and safety problems, some health departments have repeatedly issued warnings: the general public must carefully choose folic acid supplements, and do not buy products from unknown sources. Only by choosing folic acid tablets produced by regular manufacturers that have passed the national authoritative certification can the quality and safety be ensured.
So, is taking real folic acid foolproof?
The personal experience of the middle-aged woman Xiao Zhang may give a reasonable answer.
The 37-year-old has been feeling tired and weak lately, and often feels dizzy.
After examination, it was found that she actually suffered from anemia and H hypertension at the same time, and the doctor immediately prescribed folic acid and iron supplements for her to supplement.
Who knows, after taking it for a period of time, Xiao Zhang's symptoms not only did not ease, but worsened.
After a detailed review, it was found that Xiao Zhang also had a serious vitamin B12 deficiency!
It turns out that long-term use of high doses of folic acid will mask the anemia caused by vitamin B12 deficiency, but aggravate the nerve damage.
It can be seen that although folic acid supplementation has a certain adjuvant treatment effect on H-type hypertension and other diseases, the higher the dose, the better.
Otherwise, not only will it be a waste of money, but it may even bring other unexpected damage to the body.
For some special populations, folic acid supplementation alone may not be enough.
For example, people who have been drinking and smoking for a long time, as well as people with diabetes, anemia and other diseases, tend to have a higher need for folic acid than ordinary people.
Moreover, it is difficult to meet the body's needs for other vitamins by supplementing folic acid alone.
For example, vitamin B12, if the "kinship" with it is out of balance, can exacerbate the onset of neurological diseases.
It can be seen that if you want to supplement nutrition in an all-round way, a single folic acid is far from enough, and it needs to be combined with other nutrients.
epilogue
In the face of more and more cerebral infarction patients, in addition to supplementing folic acid in moderation, we should eat more food, eat more foods containing folic acid, pay attention to nutritional balance in diet, work and rest regularly, exercise more, and do not put too much pressure on ourselves, I believe that there will be a lot less various diseases in human beings.
What do you think about folic acid supplementation can reduce cerebral infarction?
Resources:
[1] "Folic acid is not "exclusive" for pregnant women, it can also prevent cerebral infarction! 》. Huaihe Hospital, Henan University.2024-02-01
[2] "Why are there more and more patients with cerebral infarction in China?" Not only should folic acid be supplemented, but these two things should also be done quickly". Popular Science in China.2023-04-16
[3] "How to supplement folic acid? It's healthier to eat with these foods! 》. Human Health & Health.2022-06-12