JEDDAH, 30 August 2004 — If smokers kick the habit their chances of getting cerebral thrombosis can be reduced by 50 percent, according to Dr. Fahmi Al-Senani, a neurologist at King Faisal Specialist Hospital & Research Center in Riyadh.
Senani said that stroke victims among smokers would suffer from excessive bleeding, five times more than non-smokers
He said about 6,000 cases of stroke are reported among Saudis annually, “It’s commonly seen among people aged between 50 to 60,” he said.
Statistics have indicated that 30 cases of cerebral thrombosis occur among every 100,000 people in the Kingdom. However, Senani pointed out that the rate was much lower compared to Western countries.
“Thrombosis generally affects elderly people and more than half of the Kingdom’s population is aged below 18,” Senani said while explaining the reason for the low rate of cerebral thrombosis cases in the country.
Experts fear that thrombosis cases in the Kingdom could grow rapidly as a result of increase in the population of elderly people, smokers, diabetic and blood pressure patients and obese people.
“We can say that 15 percent of people suffering from cerebral thrombosis die within a month,” Okaz daily quoted him as saying. “This is a condition which develops gradually over the years,” Senani said. Blood pressure, diabetes, lack of exercise, smoking and high cholesterol level are some of the causes.
In other medical news, Abeer Al-Manabiry, director of the project for fighting blood diseases and medical checkup, told Al-Watan that she expected that pre-marital medical checkup would reduce blood-related diseases by 20 percent.
