My doctor told me I must have had a number of silent strokes, but of course he never showed me my scans and pointed out the locations.
http://www.newswise.com/articles/two-biomarkers-predict-increased-risk-for-silent-strokes
Two biomarkers widely being investigated as predictors of heart and
vascular disease appear to indicate risk for "silent" strokes and other
causes of mild brain damage that present no symptoms, report
researchers from The Methodist Hospital and several other institutions
in an upcoming issue of Stroke (now online).
The
researchers found high blood levels of troponin T and NT-proBNP were
associated with as much as 3 and 3.5 times the amount of damaged brain
tissue, respectively. The findings are part of the large-scale
Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) study, funded by the National
Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.
"The concept of prevention is
expanding," said principal investigator Christie Ballantyne, M.D.,
director of the Center for Cardiovascular Disease Prevention at The
Methodist Hospital. "It's not good enough to simply do a few tests and
try to assess risk for heart attack. What we need to do is assess the
risk for heart attack, stroke, heart failure and also asymptomatic
disease so we can start preventive efforts earlier. Waiting to correct
problems until after a symptomatic stroke may be too late."
One possible outcome is that patients determined to be in high-risk groups could be started on anti-stroke medications sooner.
In
another ARIC paper published two months ago in Stroke, Ballantyne and
coauthors reported a strong association between blood levels of troponin
T and NT-proBNP and more severe instances of stroke, called symptomatic
stroke. The current study looked at the two biomarkers and
"subclinical," asymptomatic events in the brain that are usually caused
by a lack of blood flow.
"Taken together, these two papers show
the biomarkers are effective at identifying people who are likely to
have mild brain disease and stroke well before damage is done," said
Ballantyne, who also is a Baylor College of Medicine professor. "This
hopefully will give doctors more time to help patients take corrective
steps to protect their brains."
For the subclinical brain disease
study, researchers gleaned data from about 1,100 patient volunteers who
agreed to have blood drawn and two MRI scans eleven years apart to look
for silent brain infarcts and also white matter lesions (WMLs) caused by
chronic inflammation.
Statistical analysis showed a strong
relationship between high NTproBNP and the likelihood of brain infarcts
and WMLs. Study participants with the highest levels of NT-proBNP had as
much as 3.5 times the number of brain infarcts as participants with low
NT-proBNP levels, and more WMLs. Those with the highest levels of
troponin T had as much as 3.0 times the number of brain infarcts and
more WMLs.
The protein troponin T is part of the troponin complex
and its presence is often used to diagnose recent heart attacks.
NT-proBNP is an inactive peptide fragment left over from the production
of brain natiuretic peptide (BNP), a small neuropeptide hormone that has
been shown to have value in diagnosing recent and ongoing congestive
heart failure.
"The highly sensitive troponin T test we used is
not approved for general clinical use in the US yet, but the NT-proBNP
test is just now starting to be used more widely beyond making a
diagnosis for heart failure," Ballantyne said.
Use the labels in the right column to find what you want. Or you can go thru them one by one, there are only 28,972 posts. Searching is done in the search box in upper left corner. I blog on anything to do with stroke.DO NOT DO ANYTHING SUGGESTED HERE AS I AM NOT MEDICALLY TRAINED, YOUR DOCTOR IS, LISTEN TO THEM. BUT I BET THEY DON'T KNOW HOW TO GET YOU 100% RECOVERED. I DON'T EITHER, BUT HAVE PLENTY OF QUESTIONS FOR YOUR DOCTOR TO ANSWER.
Changing stroke rehab and research worldwide now.Time is Brain! trillions and trillions of neurons that DIE each day because there are NO effective hyperacute therapies besides tPA(only 12% effective). I have 523 posts on hyperacute therapy, enough for researchers to spend decades proving them out. These are my personal ideas and blog on stroke rehabilitation and stroke research. Do not attempt any of these without checking with your medical provider. Unless you join me in agitating, when you need these therapies they won't be there.
What this blog is for:
My blog is not to help survivors recover, it is to have the 10 million yearly stroke survivors light fires underneath their doctors, stroke hospitals and stroke researchers to get stroke solved. 100% recovery. The stroke medical world is completely failing at that goal, they don't even have it as a goal. Shortly after getting out of the hospital and getting NO information on the process or protocols of stroke rehabilitation and recovery I started searching on the internet and found that no other survivor received useful information. This is an attempt to cover all stroke rehabilitation information that should be readily available to survivors so they can talk with informed knowledge to their medical staff. It lays out what needs to be done to get stroke survivors closer to 100% recovery. It's quite disgusting that this information is not available from every stroke association and doctors group.
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