Strokes in younger people have become more common. A study reveals that different risk factors dominate than in older people.
Strokes have declined in people aged 55 and over in recent years. Contrary to this development, the disease has steadily increased in younger people. Until now, it was assumed that the same traditional risk factors play a role as in older age: especially high blood pressure, diabetes, being very overweight or coronary heart disease.
However, studies have recently shown an increase in strokes in young adults who do not have these factors. US scientists have now investigated what often underlies them – with surprising results.
Stroke risk
The traditional or classic factors include: high blood pressure, diabetes, lipid metabolism disorders, sleep apnea, peripheral arterial disease, coronary heart disease, alcohol or drug abuse, smoking, obesity and heart failure.
Stroke risk: Up to 35, non-traditional factors dominate
As part of their study, they evaluated data from more than 10,000 subjects, including 2,618 people who had suffered a stroke and 7,827 people without a stroke. Comparing these two groups was intended to identify the risk factors that were most commonly associated with stroke.
The analysis revealed that non-traditional risk factors such as
- Migraine,
- blood clotting disorders,
- kidney failure,
- Autoimmune diseases and
- Cancer diseases
were increasingly associated with the development of a stroke in people aged 18 to 44 years. These risk factors were particularly common in people under 35 years of age.
Among 18- to 34-year-olds, more strokes were associated with non-traditional risk factors (31.4 percent in men and 42.7 percent in women) than with traditional risk factors (25.3 percent in men and 33.3 percent in Women).
“The younger patients are at the time of the stroke, the higher the likelihood that the stroke was due to a non-traditional risk factor,” said study author Michelle Leppert, a neurology professor at the University of Colorado in Aurora, in a press release.
Major significance of migraine was a surprise
Migraine is the most important non-traditional stroke risk factor in younger people, according to the study. Among 18- to 34-year-olds, the disease was involved in 20.1 percent of strokes in men and 34.5 percent of strokes in women.
This high proportion surprised the researchers. “There have been numerous studies that have shown a connection between migraines and stroke. But we are showing for the first time how strong the risk factor migraines apparently are,” says Leppert.
Shortly
Migraine is a headache disorder that is one of the brain diseases and therefore a neurological disease. It is defined by recurring, paroxysmal headaches lasting between 4 and 72 hours.
The headaches associated with migraines are moderate to very severe. They are often accompanied by other complaints such as nausea, sensitivity to noise and light.
As the researchers further report, there are already some assumptions about how migraines could trigger strokes:
- due to an increased tendency to clot,
- due to reduced blood circulation,
- through changes in the vessel wall,
- through small blood clots,
- because there could be a common genetic basis or
- as a result of medication with non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) and triptans.
However, it is unknown how much each of these factors contributes to the increased risk and whether the increased risk of stroke can be reduced by treating migraines.
Further investigations should follow to check the reliability of these results. The study was recently published in the English-language journal “Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes.”
Neurological diseases are increasing rapidly
Another current US study shows: Diseases of the nervous system have replaced heart and circulatory diseases at the top of the world’s most common health problems. Accordingly, in 2021, more than 3.4 billion people, or 43 percent of the world’s population, suffered from nervous system diseases such as dementia, migraines, Parkinson’s disease, tinnitus, sleep disorders or stroke. The main cause of this development is the increasing aging population.