Diabetes can DOUBLE your risk of stroke

Diabetes can DOUBLE your risk of stroke, so why aren't patients told to cut their blood pressure?

Adrian Scott was driving on a dual carriageway at 70 miles per hour when he felt a sensation like an electric shock strike his left side.

'I managed to pull over using my right hand and leg to control the car,' recalls Adrian, 60, a broadcasting technology consultant from Alhampton, Somerset.

'But by the time I came to a stop, I'd lost all feeling in my left side. I immediately realised I had the symptoms of a stroke and called 999 on my mobile.'

Adrian, who is married with two grown up children, was rushed to hospital, where a scan confirmed he had suffered a haemorrhagic stroke, caused by a blood vessel bleeding in his brain.

This type of stroke is particularly dangerous - a third of sufferers die within 30 days.

Adrian survived his stroke in June 2009, although he has been left with pins and needles and numbness on his entire left side, which cause stiffness and make him tire easily and slur his words.

What is Diabetes? Most of the food we eat is turned into glucose, or sugar, for our bodies to use for energy.

The pancreas, an organ that lies near the stomach, makes a hormone called insulin to help glucose get into the cells of our bodies.

When you have diabetes, your body either doesn't make enough insulin or can't use its own insulin as well as it should.

This causes sugars to build up in the blood.

Diabetes can cause serious health complications including heart disease, blindness, kidney failure, and lower-extremity amputations.

Diabetes is predicted by a clear set of symptoms, but it still often goes undiagnosed.

The main three diabetes signs are:

Increased thirst
Increased need to urinate
Increased hunger

Diabetes is becoming increasingly more common throughout the world, due to increased obesity - which can lead to metabolic syndrome or pre-diabetes leading to higher incidences of type 2 diabetes.

However, he was alarmed when doctors explained what had probably triggered it - type 2 diabetes, a condition he was diagnosed with just a year before, in 2008.

The condition more than doubles the risk of stroke because it can increase blood pressure.

Unfortunately, while most diabetics are aware of the importance of controlling their blood sugar levels, many don't appreciate the importance of keeping their blood pressure down, too.

Indeed, strokes among diabetics have reached record highs, according to new figures from the National Diabetes Audit - around 16,000 people with diabetes suffered a stroke in England in 2009/10, a 57 per cent rise since 2006/07.