Anatomy

A ministroke starts the same as a full-blown stroke but symptoms subside after a few hours. They are often never diagnosed and sometimes even go unnoticed.

A new study done by researchers at the International Stroke Conference in Texas suggest that after suffering a ministrokes many patients lost some ability to process abstract thoughts. This is what doctors call executive function.

The MRIs and CTs done to identify the blood vessel blockage in a normal stroke don’t always identify those in a ministroke because the damage is so subtle. However, when researchers tested executive function skills of 140 patients whom presented with symptoms of a ministroke the number of impaired individuals ranged from 13 to 40 percent. This is a lot compared to the 5 percent that tested and had impaired cognitive thinking.

You may think these are small numbers and maybe the patients being tested just weren’t very smart but the tests included tasks such as putting digits in numerical order or drawing a clock with the hands pointing to a specific time. Loss of these skills suggests a corresponding deterioration in everyday tasks.

“We used to attribute this to aging, but we now know that this isn’t normal aging,” Harnadek said. “It’s these cognitive difficulties.”

On top of causing damage to cognitive thinking and executive function ministrokes also put a person at risk for full-blown strokes.

Do you think these tests are legitimate and should be furthered studied?

Do you know the signs and symptoms to look for if someone might be having a stroke?

We all know cigarettes are bad for our bodies. Tobacco is a toxin; it is addictive, unattractive, causes cancer, heart disease, and breathing problem, and ultimately leads to an early death but did you also know they are infectious?

Many people already knew that smoking weakened your immune system making smokers vulnerable for infection, but actually be infectious? Yes, infectious. A team from University of Maryland did a study concluding cigarettes are filled with bacteria that are likely to spread an infection throughout the body.

“Nearly every paper that you pick up discussing the health effects of cigarettes starts out with something to the effect that smokers and people exposed to secondhand smoke experience high rates of respiratory infections,” notes Amy Sapkota leader of the graduate study. “But nobody talks about cigarettes as a source of those infections,”

Sopkota’s team, under sterile conditions, preformed “surgery” on four different brands of cigarettes: Marlboro Red, Camel, Kool Filter Kings, and Lucky Strike Original Red, which are the four most commonly smoked cigarettes around the world. In each of these brands bacteria like Campylobacter, Clostridium, and Corynebacterium were found which are linked to food poisoning, pneumonias, e.coli, urinary tract infections, and staphylococcus (this is what causes mat rash).

If the germs are living in the tobacco, something the team as not yet confirmed, it would explain the health problems linked to secondhand smoke seeing as just handling the cigarette could be enough to contract the bacteria.

There are literally several thousand potentially toxic chemicals that have been discovered in cigarettes. Do you think if this study spreads to the public smoking will decrease?