Women Need To Be Doubly Careful In Avoiding Stroke

Women need to be doubly careful in avoiding stroke as recent statistics show women being more prone to stroke than men

. Data from the American Heart Association published last February 2010 in its Circulation Journal show that there are 65,000 more women than men who have a stroke each year.

"Analysis of NHANES 1999 to 2004 data found that women 45 to 54 years of age are more than twice as likely as men to have suffered a stroke. Women in the 45- to 54-year age group had a 4-fold higher likelihood of having had a stroke than women 35 to 44 years of age," the Circulation Journal reveals. This means that women aged 45 years old and above have higher incidence rates of stroke than men of the same age , which is at 1.25.

Relatively, stroke death rates are higher for women than in men, whose death rates declined from 1.11 to 1.03 from 1980 to 2005. Women actually accounted for 60.6% of stroke deaths in the United States in 2006., showing higher rates for Asian or Pacific Islander females at 34.9 than American Indian/Alaska Native females at 30.9.

Experts say that this phenomenon is due to the current population having more elderly women than men, resulting to more women dying of stroke each year. In short, because women live longer than men, they become more prone of dying due to stroke.

Stroke disability is greater in women than men, registering 33% of women having moderate-to-severe disability than men who only had 27%. The Framingham Heart Study echoes this truth with results pegging 34% of women experiencing disability 6 months after their stroke, more than double to that of their counterpart at 16%.

All these data reveal that stroke has now become a major health issue for women. Doctors attribute this to a woman's life cycle--the culprit being, menopause.

Menopause brings so many hormonal changes to a woman's body beginning age 45 that complications arise, even though they are generally healthy. In fact, a randomized trial of 16,608 women identified estrogen plus progestin increased risk by 44% for ischemic stroke but no effect on hemorrhagic stroke. Called the Women's Health Initiative (WHI), the trial comprised of mostly healthy women.

"Overall, randomized clinical trial data indicate that the use of estrogen plus progestin... increases stroke risk in postmenopausal, generally healthy women and provides no protection for women with established heart disease," WHI summarized.

Indeed, women need to be doubly careful in avoiding stroke. The key now to avoid stroke for women is preparation. Women should take the initiative to prepare for their golden years by living healthy lives in their youth. This means having low BMI through regular exercise and a healthy diet, which consists of moderate alcohol consumption, and abstinence from smoking.

by: Cheow Yu Yuan

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