--Young women with a family history of stroke in their parents or siblings could
have an increased risk for stroke themselves, a report released Monday said.
Dr. Helen Kim of the University of Washington and colleagues also found a
2.4-fold increase in the risk of ruptured-vessel stroke among women with a
family history of the vascular disease.
The researchers compared 109 Washington state women raging in age from 18 to
44 diagnosed with stroke to 428 young women without a stroke who lived in the
same areas of Washington state and were of similar age and background. Almost
half of the women who had a stroke reported having a family history of the
disease.
In the December issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, Kim and
colleagues said it's unclear exactly why a family history of stroke affects a
woman's risk of stroke at any age.
"Considering that stroke is the second major cause of mortality in women,
further research should be focused on identifying the reasons for familial
aggregation of stroke, be they genetic, environmental or, more likely, a
combination of both," Kim wrote
