What are the dietary taboos for cerebral thrombosis?

In fact, there is no food that is 100% untouchable. The core taboo is an unbalanced diet high in salt, oil, and sugar for a long time. There are rumors on the Internet that eggs and fat cannot be eaten at all. There is actually still a lot of controversy in the academic circles.

During a follow-up visit last month, I met 62-year-old Chen. After he recovered from a cerebral thrombosis last winter, he heard from the health-preserving party in the community that eggs and pork were "hair-raising substances" that would induce recurrence of blood clots. He didn't touch eggs for half a year, and he didn't even touch a bite of lean pork. He only had boiled cabbage with rice every day. This time, his albumin was as low as only 32g/L.

Why is there such a misunderstanding? In fact, most of the causes of cerebral thrombosis are atherosclerosis. Long-term high blood pressure, blood lipids, and blood sugar are the main high-risk factors, so there is a saying of "taboos", but this taboo never targets a single food. Take the salt that everyone is most afraid of. It’s not that you can’t add any salt, but that the total daily intake should be controlled within 5g. Don’t underestimate those invisible salts. I met an aunt before who used very little salt in her own cooking, but she had to eat two bags of plums and three or four pieces of soybean curd every day. At the end of the day, there were almost 10g of invisible salt. Her blood pressure could not be controlled for half a year, and the medicine I had prescribed for a long time was useless. After stopping the plums and soybean curd, the blood pressure stabilized in half a month.

As for the most controversial high-cholesterol foods, such as egg yolks and animal offal, the guidelines in previous years did say that they should be strictly restricted, but new research in the past two years also shows that the impact of dietary cholesterol intake on human blood cholesterol is actually only about 30%, and the remaining 70% is synthesized by oneself. If you have stable blood lipid control, eat three or four eggs a week, and occasionally eat one or two slices of braised pork liver to supplement iron, it is absolutely fine. On the contrary, it is much better than the nutritional imbalance caused by a purely vegetarian diet. Of course, if your LDL is ridiculously high, then you still need to control the amount appropriately and don't eat every meal.

Some people also ask, is it okay to have a family dinner during the New Year and holidays, and can’t help but want to nibble on a piece of sauced pork elbow or eat a sweet cake? You really don’t need to be so nervous. Eat one or two pieces if you are skinny, and take a small spoonful of cake to satisfy your cravings. As long as you don’t eat like this all the time, there won’t be any big problem. But if you hold back too hard and can’t help but overeat one day, it is really dangerous. However, there is one thing that is really recommended to be avoided as much as possible, which is wine. Don’t believe the rumors that drinking red wine softens blood vessels. The beneficial resveratrol is not worth the damage of alcohol to the endothelium of blood vessels. If you really don’t want to lose face, drink it. Take a sip of low-alcohol wine at most, and don’t be greedy for too much.

Of course, this does not mean that there is no need to eat taboos at all. Patients who have just passed the acute stage and are still taking anticoagulants should try not to touch foods that are too hard, too hot, or too irritating. If the digestive tract is scratched, there is a risk of bleeding. Usually, processed meat products with a lot of additives, sweet milk tea, and fried chicken steaks should also be eaten as little as possible. The damage to blood vessels by these things is much greater than if you occasionally eat a piece of fatty meat.

In fact, after so many years of follow-up for cerebrovascular disease, I have seen patients who have recovered the best. They are never the kind who dare not eat anything and starve themselves to a sallow complexion, nor are they the kind who eat and drink without caring after discharge. They are the kind who eat a little of everything, eat nothing more, and have a balanced diet. To put it bluntly, the dietary taboos for cerebral thrombosis are never about the admission of certain foods, but about controlling the overall diet structure and not going to extremes.