Unhealthy lifestyle increases risk of stroke
People who lead unhealthy lifestyles are more than twice as likely to suffer a stroke as those who live healthy
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Friday, 20, Feb 2009 08:10
People who lead unhealthy lifestyles are more than twice as likely to suffer a stroke as those who live healthy, research claims.
A report published on bmj.com today looked at over 20,000 men and women aged between 40 and 79.
Researchers scored the participants for each of four healthy behaviours: current non-smoking, physically not inactive, moderate alcohol intake (one-14 units per week) and blood vitamin C levels of 50 µmol/l or more, indicating fruit and vegetable intake of at least five servings a day.
The participants were then followed for an average of 11-and-a-half years, while strokes were recorded using death certificates and hospital discharge data.
During the follow-up period there were a total of 599 incident strokes and, after adjusting for other factors that may have affected the results, the researchers found the risk of stroke was 2.3 times greater in those with a score of zero compared to those with a score of four, suggesting an unhealthy lifestyle increased the risk.
The risk of stroke increased in linear fashion with every point decrease in health behaviour score, the authors claim.
For example, those participants with a score of two were one and a half (1.58) times more likely to have a stroke than those with a score of four, while those with a score of just one were just over twice (2.18) as likely to have a stroke.
Dr Matthew Giles from the stroke prevention research unit at John Radcliffe hospital Oxford claims in an accompanying editorial that the conclusion that lifestyle predicts the risk of stroke should help to inform individuals.
Stroke is one of the leading causes of illness and death in the UK, with an estimated annual cost of subsequent carrying around £7 billion.