Stroke
Do you have your mother’s blue eyes? Or your father’s pale skin? We are constructed from the genes passed on to us, both for good and bad. So while we may inherit a parent’s long legs, we can also be on the receiving end of an inheritance we wouldn’t choose, from short sight and allergies to IBS and heart conditions, for instance. Now there may be another inherited health risk to add to the list: stroke.
New research, carried out as part of the long-term Framingham Study in the United States, looked at whether having a parent who suffered a stroke increased an individual’s chances of having one too.
The study, published in the online edition of Circulation, the journal of the American Heart Association, used 3,443 participants, whose parents were also taking part in the Framingham Study. The results for the parents of the participants showed that 106 had strokes by the time they were 65 years old. The results for the participants themselves showed that during the 40 years of the study 128 had strokes.
After allowing for usual risk factors, such as high blood pressure, smoking, diabetes, age and so on, the researchers found that if you have a parent who had a stroke by the age of 65, you have twice the risk of having a stroke, and four times the risk of having a stroke by the time you are 65.
This is potentially sobering news for anyone whose parent has had a stroke, and especially those whose mother or father had a stroke before they were 65. It’s also a good reason for keeping a family health history through the generations. "The study shows that parental stroke by age 65 is a powerful risk factor for stroke in the offspring," says Sudha Seshadri, MD, lead author on the research.
"We believe parental history of stroke should be included with other stroke risk factors in predicting a person’s risk of stroke." In fact the parental link seems to be as important as high blood pressure when considering your risk of stroke.
Further links emerged from the study. Parents and their children were more likely to have the same type of stroke. Ischaemic stroke for example, which is caused by a blockage in a blood vessel, was recorded in 74 parents and 106 offspring. There was also a link between the sex of the parent and the sex of their child. When it was a father who’d had a stroke, the risk to their offspring was less strong, but was likely to affect both sons and daughters. When it was a mother who’d had a stroke, their daughters were more likely to be affected.
Further work needs to be carried out in this area, but these initial findings give us all more reason to take care of ourselves.
Dr Peter Coleman, Deputy Director of Research at The Stroke Association said: "Having a close relative who has had a stroke can increase your risk, possibly because conditions that heighten your risk of stroke, such as high blood pressure and diabetes, tend to run in families.
"However, making everyday lifestyle changes can help reduce your risk of stroke. By not smoking, drinking alcohol in moderation, eating a healthy balanced diet and taking exercise you can reduce your risk of stroke. Anyone who is concerned about their risk of stroke should talk to their GP."
For more information go to The Stroke Association’s website, www.stroke.org.uk.
About the Framingham Heart Study
The Framingham Heart Study is a long-term project that was set up to identify the common characteristics that contribute to cardiovascular disease. The study started in 1948, when 5,209 men and women, aged 30 to 62, were recruited from the town of Framingham, Massachusetts. They were closely scrutinised, with physical examinations and lifestyle interviews.
Since those first examinations, the members of this group have returned every two years for examinations, medical histories and laboratory tests. In 1997, a new set, 5,124 of the original group’s children and their husbands and wives, were enrolled. In 2002, the grandchildren of the original group joined this study into heart disease, which has now been running for more than half a century and continues to make important discoveries.
First published March 11, 2010