Young women should check stroke history
Monday, November 22, 2004
SEATTLE, Nov 22, 2004
(United Press International via COMTEX) –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