Blood clots and strokes are now affecting “younger and younger people” because of their “unhealthy lifestyles,” the media is claiming.
Over the weekend, Hailey Baldwin Bieber revealed that she was rushed to hospital after collapsing with “stroke-like symptoms.”
The 25-year-old model shared on Saturday that she was eating breakfast with her husband Justin Bieber on Thursday when she “suffered a very small blood clot.”
Doctors found that the “blood clot” on her brain led to a “small lack of oxygen” which caused the “stroke-like symptoms.”
Bieber’s body was able to pass the blood clot on its own, she explained, and she “recovered completely within a few hours.”
The reports have raised major concerns about the rise in blood clots in young, healthy people.
However, media outlet PEOPLE, citing a “vascular neurologist,” is now claiming that “stroke-like symptoms” are becoming more normal in “younger and younger people” due to their “lifestyles.”
Blood clots like Bieber’s can form “for different reasons,” both environmental and genetic, Dr. Shazam Hussain, the director of the Cerebrovascular Center at Cleveland Clinic, reportedly told the outlet.
“It’s important to know your health and any potential risk factors you might have for strokes, like high blood pressure, high cholesterol, difficulty with sugars …
“When we have younger people having a stroke, we will look for things that would cause their blood to have a tendency to clot — it could be hereditary and run in their families.”
Blood clots that move to the brain typically originate from a blocked blood vessel in a spot in the body like the neck or directly from the heart, Hussain says.
And once in the brain, “the organ that’s most sensitive to lack of blood flow,” the lack of oxygen will cause the brain function to shut down and cause stroke-like symptoms.
Those symptoms can be spotted with the acronym BE FAST — B for balance, E for eyes and having vision trouble, F for face drooping, A for arm or limb weakness, S for speech difficulty, and T for time, meaning it’s time to call 911.
“A stroke is really a situation where every second counts,” Hussain tells PEOPLE.
“The brain is very, very sensitive to the lack of blood flow and you lose somewhere around 2 million brain cells a minute.
“So it’s really important to get that medical attention right away.”
In Bieber’s case, she was able to pass the blood clot on her own, which is often possible with small clots.
“If it’s a small clot, it can just dissipate and go away on its own and not leave any lasting issues or problems,” Hussain assures younger people, concerned about their own health.
In situations like Bieber’s, the incidents are typically called mini-strokes or a transient ischemic attack (TIA): “That means there was a blood clot, it dissolved up completely and the person is completely a hundred percent back to normal,” Hussain says.
If an MRI shows any injury to the brain, however, “then it becomes a full stroke.”
Situations like Bieber’s are something that everyone should watch out for, young and old, Hussain says.
“We think of stroke as being something that happens in older ages, but we are seeing it in younger and younger people,” he says.
“It relates, generally, to people having unhealthy lifestyles, maybe not eating as well or not getting in regular exercise, along with other factors like genetics.
“So it’s important that people don’t just think of it as something that happens to older people.
“If you’re younger and have those symptoms, you’ve got to get to the hospital.”
Hussain also notes that while COVID-19 illness has been shown to cause blood clots, “fortunately most people don’t run into that issue.”
However, it’s unlikely that Bieber’s case was caused by Covid because she was fully vaccinated and not showing any symptoms of the virus.
According to the media, the healthy 25-year-old model more likely suffered “stroke-like symptoms” from a “blood clot” because of her “unhealthy lifestyle.”
Mystery solved.
