Do you know the top five warning signs of a stroke? If you don't, you're not alone — less than half of all Americans can recognize these signs.

With stroke the number three killer in America after heart disease and cancer, you would do well to know them. Some 780,000 people in the U.S. will have strokes this year, according to the Center for Disease Control. Strokes will kill 150,000 people and leave 15 percent to 30 percent of survivors permanently disabled.

Stroke warning signs:
1. sudden numbness or weakness of the face, arm, or leg, especially on one side;
2. sudden confusion or difficulty speaking;
3. sudden trouble walking, dizziness or loss of balance;
4. sudden trouble with vision in one eye or both;
5. and severe headache with no known cause.

A stroke is most commonly related to atherosclerosis — a thickening, narrowing and hardening of the arteries supplying the brain with oxygen. Most strokes are directly related to high blood pressure.

Stroke is a lifestyle disease. A lifestyle disease means that a person's lifestyle largely determines the risk of developing a particular disease. Studies have convincingly shown that a rich diet, sedentary living, drinking alcohol and smoking, excess weight and elevated blood pressure largely determine a person's risk for developing "lifestyle" diseases. These include heart disease, stroke, adult diabetes, liver cirrhosis and cancers of the lung, breast, colon and prostrate.

After cancer and AIDS, stroke is probably the most dreaded and disabling disease afflicting Westernized civilizations. Fatal strokes can occur without warning. Around one-fourth of victims under age 70 die from the first attack; after that the figure doubles.

Most strokes can be prevented. The CHIP program shows you how. And living the CHIP lifestyle definitely reduces your risk of developing this crippling disease.

Caution:

This information is not intended to replace medical advice or treatment from personal physicians. Questions about symtoms and medications, general or specific, should be addressed to personal health care providers. Those readers taking prescription medications should consult with their physicians and not take themselves off these drugs without medical supervision.

More Americans than ever before are suffering from chronic multiple illnesses, including diabetes, hypertension (high blood pressure), high cholesterol levels, cancer, arthritis, heart failure and others, a study released in 2009 says.

All of these are conditions that the Coronary Health Improvement Project is designed to reduce. And CHIP has a clear track record of doing just that, in many cases eliminating some conditions entirely.

Adding insult to the injury of ill health, these multiple illnesses have caused a big increase in medical expenses. With prescription drugs playing a major role, yearly out-of-pocket medical costs — those not covered by insurance — rose from $427 per person in 1996 to $741 a year nine years later.

Several factors are behind this increase in multiple, chronic illnesses. The rise coincides with the increase of non-active lifestyles and overweight. Overweight is a contributing factor to many chronic illnesses including diabetes. Adult-onset diabetes has skyrocketed close to 90 percent in the past 10 years.

The number of people with three or more chronic diseases rose even more dramatically than that.

The rise in chronic, multiple illnesses has been seen among older age groups and in middle age and early old age — no matter what the gender, race, ethnicity and income level of those surveyed.

After taking CHIP, many people no longer need some or all of their medications, because the CHIP lifestyle has reversed or eliminated the condition — high blood pressure; narrowed arteries; diabetes, etc.

CHIP can most definitely save money for those suffering from chronic, multiple illnesses. It can also improve overall health, and in some cases, save the lives of those who adopt the CHIP lifestyle.

Caution:

This information is not intended to replace medical advice or treatment from personal physicians. Questions about symtoms and medications, general or specific, should be addressed to personal health care providers. Those readers taking prescription medications should consult with their physicians and not take themselves off these drugs without medical supervision.

Strokes have tripled recently among middle-aged women in America, a frightening trend doctors blame on increasing obesity.

The increase of this crippling occurrence happened even though more women are on medicines to control their cholesterol and blood pressure, steps that are supposed to decrease the risk of stroke.

What's behind this bad news? American women's waists are almost two inches bigger than they were a decade ago and that fat corresponds with the increase in strokes.

Female's average body mass index rose from 27 to 29, and they also had higher blood sugar levels.

A stroke is most commonly related to atherosclerosis, a thickening, narrowing and hardening of the arteries supplying oxygenated blood to the brain. Atherosclerosis can occur both in arteries within the brain and in arteries leading to the brain.

Strokes do their terrible damage by preventing fresh, oxygenated blood from reaching an area of the brain, which dies from lack of oxygen. If a large portion of the brain is affected, the stroke will be severe or fatal. A smaller area of brain damage will cause a less severe stroke.

Like other lifestyle diseases, strokes would be less common if people adopted healthful lifestyle practices, including those taught by CHIP:

•    Check blood pressure regularly. High blood pressure, or hypertension, increases stroke risk by an astounding 800 percent.
•    Don't smoke. If you do smoke, stop now, not later.
•    Use much less salt, a major cause of hypertension.
•    Get to your ideal weight and stay there. Overweight promotes atherosclerosis, hypertension and most diabetes.
•    Eat a low-fat, low-cholesterol, high-fiber diet.
•    Exercise actively and regularly. Exercise helps control weight and hypertension and improves circulation.

The great news is that arterial blockages that cause strokes are reversible. Thickened, narrowed arteries open again when a very low-fat, vegetarian diet is followed, along with other health practices.

Caution:

This information is not intended to replace medical advice or treatment from personal physicians. Questions about symtoms and medications, general of specific, should be addressed to personal health care providers. Those readers taking prescription medications should consult with their physicians and not take themselves off these drugs without medical supervision.