According to a 2021 global study co-led by NUI Galway, which analyzed records of 13,462 cases of acute stroke, heavy physical exertion can increase your risk of stroke within one hour of completing the exercise. In fact, one in 20 stroke patients included in the study had engaged in heavy exertion just prior to their stroke.
A study published in the American Journal of Epidemiology reached the same conclusion a decade earlier. “Physical activity during the hour before stroke symptoms arose was compared with usual frequency of physical activity over the prior year. Of the 390 subjects, 21 (5 percent) reported having engaged in moderate or vigorous physical activity during the hour before ischemic stroke onset, and six subjects had lifted an object weighing at least 50 pounds during that hour,” they wrote.Andrew Smyth, a professor of clinical epidemiology at NUI Galway, consultant nephrologist at Galway University Hospitals, and co-author of the 2021 study explained in a press release that the team’s findings could help predict and mitigate one’s stroke risk. “Many studies have focused on medium to long-term exposures, such as hypertension, obesity or smoking. Our study aimed to look at acute exposures that may act as triggers,” he said.
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