A simple way to slash your risk of having a stroke

It’s the kind of home run that would have billion-dollar drug companies drooling.

Imagine a substance that can slash stroke risk by one-fifth for people with high blood pressure.

But it wasn’t some hotshot new drug that pulled off this feat in a recent study – it was the B vitamin known as folic acid.

In a nearly five-year, double-blind (the gold-standard in testing) clinical trial, Chinese researchers looked at 21,700 adults with hypertension who had never had a stroke.

Half the volunteers had a daily 0.8 mg. dose of folic acid added to their treatment plan, and half didn’t. When the study concluded, the researchers found that the simple addition of folic acid was able to keep stroke risk down by 21 percent.

And you don’t have to have hypertension to benefit from folic acid. An earlier study found folic acid supplementation can reduce your stroke risk 18 percent even if you have perfect blood pressure.

It’s easy to get folate, the natural form of folic acid, in lots of the foods you eat every day. That includes spinach, broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, avocados, citrus fruits, beans, peas, lentils, beets, okra, asparagus, nuts and seeds…the list goes on and on!

And another form, called L-5- MTHF, can be found in nearly all B complex supplements.

Folic acid helps you grow and maintain new cells. And it may help prevent strokes by regulating blood levels of homocysteine. When these go too high, they can cause blood clots that result in both strokes and heart attacks.

Lower homocysteine levels and fewer strokes. That’s not just a home run – it’s a grand slam.

Source:

“This may help ward off stroke in some with high BP” Robert Preidt, March 15, 2015, WebMD, webmd.com