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• Posted November 14, 2024

These Are the 3 Big Factors Driving Strokes

A trio of risk factors not only increase your risk of stroke, but they also raise the odds that such a stroke will be debilitating, a new study warns.

What are these three big dangers? Smoking, having high blood pressure and suffering from atrial fibrillation all significantly raise the risk of suffering a severe stroke, researchers reported Nov. 13 in the journal Neurology.

“Stroke can lead to disability or even death, yet there are a number of risk factors that people can modify with a change in lifestyle or medication,” said investigator Catriona Reddin, a geriatrics researcher at the University of Galway in Ireland.

“Our results emphasize the importance of managing risk factors for stroke, especially high blood pressure, atrial fibrillation and smoking in order to prevent severe, disabling stroke,” Reddin added in a journal news release.

Severe strokes result in people being unable to walk or care for themselves without assistance, researchers said. These patients require constant nursing care for the rest of their lives.

For the study, researchers tracked nearly 27,000 people from 32 countries with an average age of 62. Of this group, half had suffered a stroke, including about 4,800 who’d had a severe stroke and 8,600 with a mild to moderate stroke.

After adjusting for other risk factors, researchers found that:

• People with atrial fibrillation -- an irregular heartbeat -- were 4.7 times more likely to have a severe stroke and 3.6 times more likely to have a mild to moderate stroke, compared to those without the condition

• Patients with high blood pressure were 3.2 times more likely to have a severe stroke and 2.9 times more likely to have a mild or moderate stroke, compared to those with normal blood pressure

• Smokers were 1.9 times more likely to have a severe stroke and 1.7 times more likely to have a mild to moderate stroke, compared to nonsmokers

“Our findings emphasize the importance of controlling high blood pressure, which is the most important modifiable risk factor for stroke globally,” Reddin said. “This is particularly relevant for lower- and middle-income countries that have rapidly increasing rates of high blood pressure and strokes at younger ages.”

More information

The American Stroke Association has more on risk factors for stroke.

SOURCE: American Academy of Neurology, news release, Nov. 13, 2024