Coffee + Blowing Your Nose Trigger Aneurysm Rupture

(Ivanhoe Newswire) -- Drinking coffee, having sex and even blowing your nose could all temporarily raise your risk of rupturing a brain aneurysm and suffering a stroke, according to a new study.

Dutch researchers discovered eight main triggers that appear to increase a person's risk of having an intracranial aneurysm (IA), which is a weakness in the wall of a brain blood vessel that often causes it to balloon. If this aneurysm ruptures, it can result in a stroke. About two percent of the population has IAs.

The eight factors that the researchers identified and their risk of contributing to a ruptured IA include:
1. Coffee consumption (10.6 percent)
2. Vigorous physical exercise (7.9 percent)
3. Nose blowing (5.4 percent)
4. Sexual intercourse (4.3 percent)
5. Straining to defecate (3.6 percent)
6. Cola consumption (3.5 percent)
7. Being startled (2.7 percent)
8. Being angry (1.3 percent)
 
Most people with IAs do not have symptoms before a rupture occurs. However, symptoms like vomiting, vision problems, loss of consciousness and severe headaches may surface.
"All of the triggers induce a sudden and short increase in blood pressure, which seems a possible common cause for aneurysmal rupture," Monique H.M. Vlak, M.D., lead author of the study and a neurologist at the University Medical Center in Utrecht, the Netherlands, was quoted as saying.
Although physical activity was a potential trigger, the researchers don not recommend refraining from it because it's also an important way to lower the risk of other cardiovascular diseases.

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SOURCE: Stroke: Journal of the American Heart Association, May 2011

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