Mid-life strokes

[differenceblog]

Miranda Hitti's (2007) article on WebMD discusses recent research that suggests that women 45-54 are more than twice as likely to have a stroke as men of similar age. UCLA researcher Amytis Towfighi's results in Neurology's June 20th edition (Towfighi et al, 2007) assessed stroke risk in over 17,000 Americans, using data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), and found that women's risk factors increased at a higher rate than men's from ages 35 to 64, as did the prevalence of stroke. Towfighi also reports that a history of heart disease and waist circumference were associated with stroke history. In contrast, Grocott et al (2005) found no correlation between stroke incidence and gender in a sample of 1635 cardiac bypass patients. Brown et al (1996) notes that more strokes may be being detected than in previous decades due to improvements in medical technology. Because both Towfighi and Grocott depend on the sample's self-reported stroke rate, there could be a confound of men not seeing a doctor for minor strokes.

"We think he had a little stroke." I can't count the number of times I've heard that exact phrase. As discussed previously ( "Playing Doctor", 8/31/2006), women go to the doctor more often than men, although this may simply be because they have more health problems. Still, it does not seem impossible to me that women would report more strokes than men if they were more likely to have stroke-like symptoms checked out. Sadly, because Towfighi's paper is available "ahead of print", I don't seem to be able to get the full text with my online access -- just the abstract. I'll be happy to discuss the controls for this sort of issue if someone can get it to me.