“Knowledge is power,” says Dr. Natalia Rost, associate professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School and associate director of the Acute Stroke Service at Massachusetts General Hospital. “If you know that a particular risk factor is sabotaging your health and predisposing you to a higher risk of stroke, you can take steps to alleviate the effects of that risk.”

Strokes and heart attacks are the leading causes of death and debilitation in the U.S. But by choosing a healthy lifestyle, you can minimize your chances of dying of these diseases.

Both are caused by blood clots traveling through blood vessels until they encounter a place where they are too large to pass. Or a plaque on a vessel wall bursts, allowing clots into the bloodstream. That’s when the real trouble starts. Strokes or “brain attacks” and heart attacks are caused by clots causing a lack of oxygen and other vital nutrients to organs, often leading to tissue damage or death.

How Blood Clots are Formed

Once there is damage to the blood vessel, platelets – tiny components that start the clotting process – gather at the site to clump together to form a plug. This is the body’s attempt at staving off bleeding. At the same time, platelets are releasing a chemical that starts blood clot formation. Fibrin, the glue that holds clots together, is also released.

Once started, blood clotting must be controlled or it can become extremely dangerous. Anti-clotting processes eventually stop the clotting. Natural anti-clotting substances usually balance with clotting chemicals to prevent clots from getting out of control.

As damaged tissue heals, the body slowly breaks down the blood clot. The materials that composed the clot get reabsorbed into the body. The enzyme plasmin break down the tough protein fibers fibrin that make up a blood clot.